On  ' 

Thti:"; 

Firing  ■ 
Line  ' 

: "■  Jenkin 

’ ■ Uoyd 
i Jones  7' 


Return  this  book  on  or  before  the 
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ON  THE  FIRING  LINE 
IN  THE  BATTLE  for  SOBRIETY 

By 

JENKIN  LLOYD  JONES 

/l\ 


(SPECIAL  EDITION) 


UNITARIAN  TEMPERANCE  SOCIETY 

BOSTON.  MASS. 

1910 


A Word  to  Friends  of  Temperance. 


This  little  book*  seems  to  the  Executive  Board  of 
the  Unitarian  Temperance  Society  one  of  the  very 
best  popular  handbooks  that  exists,  so  simple,  so  direct, 
so  human,  so  sober,  so  full  of  facts  that  captivate  and 
convince,  equally  interesting  to  old  and  young,  helpful 
to  the  advocate  of  total  abstinence,  which  today  is  the 
only  rational  interpretation  of  temperance,  and  also 
persuasive  with  the  indifferent  and  the  indulgent. 

It  ought  to  be  in  every  library,  large  and  small. 
Parents  and  teachers  can  do  no  better  than  to  keep  a 
copy  in  circulation  among  the  young.  Preachers  will 
find  helpful  material  here  for  sermons.  No  better 
program  for  a special  temperance  service  in  Sunday 
schools  or  for  young  people^s  religious  societies  could 
be  provided  than  readings  from  its  pages.  Mothers  will 
do  well  to  keep  a copy  on  the  table  in  the  living  room 
of  the  home.  It  is  itself  a ‘‘flanking  column”  (to  bor- 
row one  of  its  striking  phrases)  of  great  power  in  the 
mighty  army  that  is  sweeping  on  to  certain  victory 
for  temperance,  which  means  the  betterment  of  human 
life.  May  it  go  far  and  wide,  inspiring  and  blessing 
mankind. 

IV e have  secured  a special  edition  of  this  hool^  for  practically^ 
free  circulation  among  librarians^  preachers,  teachers  and  Sunday^ 
school  superintendents,  who,  on  application  {sending  5 cents  for 
cost  of  delivery^),  will  he  sent  a copyf  on  condition  that  they  ^eep 
it  in  use  among  their  friends. 

Address, 

REV.  DR.  JOSEPH  H.  CROOKER, 
President  Unitarian  Temperance  Society, 

25  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 


\ *The  original  edition  (1910)  in  cloth  sold  at  50  cents,  and 
r \ can  still  be  had  at  that  price  of  Unity  Publishing  Co.,  Abraham 
Lincoln  Centre,  Chicago,  111. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/onfiringlineinbaOOjone 


To  Thomas,  John,  James,  Enos  and  Philip, 
Loyal  Brothers. 


Consistent  practice  is  more  convincing  than  preaching. 


, i ^ 


“For  it  is  precept  upon  precept,  precept  upon 
precept,  line  upon  line,  line  upon  line;  here  a little, 
there  a little.** 


— Isaiah  xxviii:tO 


CONTENTS. 

A Night  in  a Saloon 7 

Two  Neighbors 43 

The  Flanking  Columns 81 


APPENDIX. 

A Letter  to  Saloon-Keepers 117 

A Letter  to  Workingmen 122 

A Letter  to  Women 127 

A Letter  to  a Beer  Advocate 131 


A 

Night 
In  a 
Saloon 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


My  good  horse  Roos  and  I had 
stretched  our  day’s  journey  beyond 
the  near  limits  of  endurance  be- 
cause the  day  was  so  delightful,  the  ride 
through  the  Wisconsin  lake  country  so 
charming,  and  because  of  a desire  on  my 
part  to  spend  one  more  night  at  the  pretty 
village  whose  name  was  intermingled  with 
some  of  the  pleasantest  memories  of  the 
old  log  house  in  the  clearing,  my  child- 
hood’s home.  In  those  pioneer  days  the 
name  of  this  village  conjured  in  my  child- 
ish imagination  an  aroma  of  devoutness,  a 
flavor  of  piety,  on  account  of  certain 
saintly  men  and  women  who  were  wel- 
comed to  our  home  fireside  from  its 
vicinity. 

These  childish  associations  had  been 
enhanced  by  several  subsequent  visits  in 
my  maturity.  Whether  I sought  it  afoot, 
on  horseback,  or  in  wagon,  it  was  the  same 
rural  hamlet,  undisturbed  by  the  whistle 

[9] 


On  The  Firing  L i n ^ 


of  the  locomotive,  uiisoiled  by  the  debris  of 
railway  stations,  rejoicing  in  velvety  green 
lawns,  basking  beside  a charming  little 
lake.  It  was  still  suggestive  of  domestic 
purity,  economic  simplicity,  financial  pros- 
perity and  social  integrity. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  on  the 
outskirts  of  this  village  there  was  a suc- 
cessful boys’  school,  an  ideal  place  for 
such;  a place  where  perplexed  city  parents 
might  send  their  boys  with  minimum  anx- 
iety, for  seemingly  it  was  a place  far 
removed  from  temptations  and  vicious 
surroundings. 

But  I was  not  the  only  one  who  had 
yielded  to  the  attractions  of  the  charming 
village  on  that  beautiful  summer  night. 
Although  it  was  yet  early,  I found  the 
little  town  full  of  other  visitors  who  had 
escaped  from  the  city;  the  limited  accom- 
modations of  the  old-fashioned  hotel,  the 
one  hostelry  of  the  village,  were  already 
exhausted,  and  I was  driven  to  seek  shelter 
for  the  night  in  the  new  saloon  on  the  cor- 
ner, with  a hotel  attachment,  fresh  in  its 
[10] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


white  paint  and  green  blinds.  The  pro- 
prietor was  a gentlemanly,  intelligent, 
courteous  young  Americanized  German. 
The  hospitality  of  his  spirit  was  genuine, 
and  he  was  sorry  to  inform  me  that  “the 
few  hotel  rooms  up  stairs”  were  already 
occupied.  The  equally  attractive  and 
kindly  young  wife,  with  her  pretty  first- 
born in  her  arms,  who  was  called  into 
council,  thought  she  might  find  a spare 
room  in  some  one  of  the  adjoining  houses; 
at  least  she  was  willing  to  do  “the  best 
she  could”  for  me.  A load  of  fragrant 
new-mown  hay  was  being  unloaded  at  the 
fresh  new  barn  in  the  rear  of  the  premises, 
and  Roos  had  already  settled  the  question 
for  herself;  she  was  already  sampling  the 
goods,  and  they  were  palatable;  she  would 
literally  spend  her  night  in  clover,  and  I 
was  willing  to  take  my  chances. 

Fully  an  hour  elapsed  before  the  young 

wife,  who  was  “doing  her  own  work”  all 

the  way  from  the  bar  to  the  kitchen  stove, 

could  begin  to  see  what  she  could  do  for 

me,  and  when  the  private  houses  in  the 
[11] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


neighborhood  were  canvassed  she  found  to 
her  dismay  that  every  spare  room  was 
occupied  or  spoken  for.  The  case  began 
to  grow  desperate.  Finally  it  settled  down 
to  the  only  chance  of  spending  my  night 
on  the  sofa  in  the  “Ladies’  Room”  of 
the  saloon,  with  doors  opening  from  the 
big  drinking-room  on  the  one  hand  and 
sliding  doors  into  the  dining-room  on  the 
other.  But  the  furniture  was  newly  bought 
and  the  room  tidy,  and  the  little  wife 
assured  me  she  could  make  me  a fairly 
comfortable  bed,  that  things  generally 
quieted  down  about  eleven  o’clock,  and 
that  there  was  no  reason  why  I should  not 
be  reasonably  comfortable. 

I had  already  noticed  on  entering  that 
the  sylvan  quality  of  my  pretty  hamlet 
was  being  threatened  by  the  encroachment 
of  an  interurban  trolley  line.  A gang  of 
workmen  had  reached  the  outskirts  of  the 
village,  and  the  laborers,  with  their  big 
boots,  sweaty  clothes  and  soiled  hands, 
were  making  the  evening  business  at  the 
saloon  lively. 


[12] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


It  was  ten  o’clock  before  the  tired  horse- 
man could  horizontalize  on  his  improvised 
bed.  He  had  had  two  hours  and  a half  to 
watch  the  business;  it  was  a study  in 
sociology,  laboratory  work  on  the  temper- 
ance problem  at  short  range.  During  the 
two  hours  and  a half  he  had  seen  the  room 
fill  up  and  the  atmosphere  grow  blue  with 
the  smoke  from  stale  pipes  and  all  kinds 
of  cigars — and  all  cigars  smelled  bad  to 
him.  It  did  seem  as  though  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men  were  gathered  there, 
making  the  dictum  of  Mr.  Calkings,  in  a 
book  of  which  I shall  speak  later,  ring 
true  even  in  that  far-off  and  clean  corner 
of  the  world,  viz,  “The  saloon  is  the  most 
democratic  of  institutions;  it  appeals  at 
once  to  the  common  humanity  of  man.” 

First,  there  came  a continuous  stream 
of  the  common  shovelers  from  the  railroad 
dump;  stolid,  foreign,  ignorant  Italians  or 
some  other  southern  European  people. 
They  came  in  groups  of  threes,  fives,  or 
more,  and  took  their  beer  in  the  main  in 
glum  silence  as  though  it  were  medicine. 

[ 13  ] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


If  they  talked  at  all  it  was  in  a dull  under- 
tone; they  took  their  dose  and,  for  the 
most  part,  went  away. 

Then  came  the  next  higher  grade  of 
laborers  — the  Americanized,  English- 
speaking  or  American-born  teamsters, 
mechanics,  bosses,  bridge  builders  and 
cement  workers.  These  were  more  jolly, 
cordial,  boisterous,  evidently  many  of  them 
with  homes  that  were  tugging  at  their 
heart-strings ; visions  of  waiting  wives  and 
watching  children  flitted  before  their 
eyes.  Once  in  a while  the  wistful  face  of 
wife  or  child  would  appear  at  the  door 
and  “Yes,  dear,  wait,  I am  coming  right 
along!”  sounded  like  strange  music  in  the 
place.  And  these  snatches  of  conversation 
were  overheard  by  the  observing  but  un- 
observed “old  man”  who  seemed  poring 
over  the  newspaper  in  the  corner. 

“Come,  let’s  go,  boys.” 

“Oh,  what’s  the  hurry?  Have  another 
glass.” 

“Well,  I must  go!” 

[14] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


‘‘Aw,  cut  it  out!  You’re  afraid  of  that 
little  woman,  are  you?” 

“Naw,  he’s  going  to  see  his  girl.” 

The  drama  had  become  intensely  excit- 
ing to  the  man  behind  the  newspaper. 
Was  it  comedy  or  tragedy?  They 
slowly  thinned  out,  the  jolly  crowd  leav- 
ing at  last  only  the  daring,  perverse,  reck- 
less core  that  grew  hilarious  over  the 
cards,  boisterous  over  the  dice  that  were 
to  determine  the  next  treat. 

Later  in  the  evening  there  came  a group 
of  boys,  schoolboys,  bearing  the  insignia 
of  “The  Academy;”  bright  boys,  steeped 
in  the  slang  and  enthusiasm  of  the  frater- 
nities and  athletics.  They  came  to  talk 
over  the  excitements  of  that  day’s  ball 
game  with  the  visiting  team  from  a town 
fifteen  miles  away.  They  frankly  dis- 
cussed, in  high  glee,  the  way  they  had 
been  “done  up”  by  their  visitors,  who 

“played  a poor  game  at  first”  until 

the  stakes  were  placed  heavily  against 
them;  then  by  a planned  accident  a new 

[15] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


boy,  an  expert,  was  run  in,  leaving  the 
home  team  no  show. 

But  those  “nice”  boys,  whose  confiding 
parents  had  placed  them  beyond  the 
danger  of  city  dissipations,  consoled 
themselves  over  their  defeat  with  the 
thought  that  they  “ought  not  to  kick,” 
for  did  they  not  last  year  make  over  two 
hundred  dollars  out  of  the  chaps  over 
the  seventy-five  lost  this  year  by  sharp 
tactics  on  the  other  side? 

The  boys  rapidly  grew  hilarious;  a few 
others  joined  them,  and  the  conversation 
of  the  little  group  grew  coarse  and  con- 
fidential. They  began  to  give  details  one 
to  another  of  escapades  and  experiences 
which  would  have  carried  anguish  to  the 
hearts  of  fathers  and  mothers,  if  they  but 
knew.  They  joked  and  laughed  over  that 
which  would  have  ostracized  them  from 
the  social  circles  that  delighted  in  them, 
were  the  facts  known,  but  they  were  facts 
which  none  of  their  friends  would  believe, 
least  of  all  their  doting  mothers  and 

trusting  sisters.  All  of  them  would 
[le] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


stoutly  resent  such  “groundless  insinua- 
tions” of  things  which  those  boys  openly 
confessed  to  one  another.  Nothing  but 
facts  verified  in  the  police  courts  would 
establish  a credulity  in  the  hairbreadth 
escapes  from  publicity  which  were  told 
with  a relish. 

Now  the  man  behind  the  paper  noticed 
with  pain  that  these  were  not  rough  boys, 
the  “toughs”  of  conventional  estimate, 
but  the  “nice”  boys;  they  lighted  dainty 
cigarettes,  they  were  choice  in  their 
drinks,  they  handled  their  glasses  with 
grace,  I easily  drew  them  into  conversa- 
tion concerning  academic  and  neighbor- 
hood matters.  Their  elegant  manners 
ripened  promptly  into  courtesy  as  they 
asked  “Uncle”  to  have  a glass  of  wine 
with  them,  and  they  managed  with  sus- 
tained decorum  to  urge  the  humorous 
alternative  of  a glass  of  pop. 

As  a blot  in  the  background  of  this 
refinement,  behind  these  representatives 
of  city  boulevards  and  avenues  came  a 
gray-bearded  Granger  with  trousers 

[17] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


tucked  into  his  tall  muddy  boots,  who  car- 
ried off  in  both  hands  the  biggest  “schoon- 
er” on  the  shelf  filled  full  of  beer  (no  froth 
for  him),  to  the  corner  and,  with  great 
deliberation  and  apparent  satisfaction, 
made  it  go  as  far  as  possible  and  then  stole 
away.  Was  he  the  true  “temperance 
man”  we  hear  so  much  about  in  some 
quarters,  the  man  “who  can  take  a drink 
when  he  wants  it  and  knows  enough  to 
stop  when  he  has  had  enough”?  or  was 
he,  as  the  boys  estimated,  “an  old  cur- 
mudgeon, too  stingy  to  join  in  a social 
glass  with  anybody,  too  penurious  to 
spare  more  than  a nickel,  and  determined 
to  get  his  full  money’s  worth?”  Some  of 
them  identified  him  as  a man  who  had 
lots  of  dollars  up  his  sleeve. 

After  the  boys  were  gone,  there  came 
into  my  neighborhood  at  the  far  end  of 
the  counter,  the  two  gentlemen  in  middle 
life  whom  I recognized  as  having  passed 
me  in  the  afternoon  in  a great  touring 
car,  with  ladies.  They  were  from  the  city, 

fashionably  clothed  and  daintily  bar- 
[18] 


A Night  in  a Saloon 


bered;  they  were  touring  through  the 
lake  country.  The  ladies  had  long  been 
in  bed,  resting  from  the  day’s  delights, 
while  the  eyes  of  their  husbands  were 
assuming  that  dull,  glazed  appearance  so 
characteristic  of  the  preliminary  stages  of 
inebriation.  In  low,  artificial  whisper 
they  contrived  with  the  barkeeper  some 
more  refined  compound  that  would  give 
the  final  blow  and  send  them  to  their  beds 
“full.”  Out  of  the  bottled  depths  of  the 
refrigerator  were  fished  some  bottles  of 
porter,  and  this  black,  nasty-looking  stuff 
was  compounded  with  the  lighter  beer, 
half-and-half,  with  a dash  of  something 
more  fiery. 

But  these  gentlemen  from  the  city  did 
not  forget  their  manners;  they  cour- 
teously solicited  “Grandpa”  to  have  some- 
thing with  them,  and  complimented  so  old 
a man  who  could  still  enjoy  horseback 
riding. 

At  last  the  kind-hearted  little  wife  in- 
formed me  that  my  bed  was  ready.  Gladly 
did  I seek  the  long-needed  repose,  inter- 

[i»i 


On  The  Firing  Line 


esting  as  were  the  studies  in  this  sociolog- 
ical laboratory.  My  soldier  habit  of 
sleeping  under  trying  circumstances  has 
never  deserted  me.  I was  soon  sound 
asleep,  but  it  was  troubled  sleep.  In  my 
dreams  I wandered  through  burning  for- 
ests of  tobacco  trees  and  waded  through 
streets  made  muddy  by  sluggish  streams 
of  beer.  Out  of  these  troubled  dreams  I 
was  awakened  by  a chorus  of  rough  voices 
singing  “Annie  Laurie,”  in  the  adjoining 
drinking-room.  The  throng,  which  at  one 
time  kept  two  men  busy  pumping  the 
dirty  stuff,  had  vanished;  the  respectable 
and  occasional  drinkers  were  gone;  the 
habituals,  midnight  revelers,  alone  held 
possession.  There  was  gaming  and  bois- 
terous disputing,  mingled  with  snatches 
of  song,  all  steeped  in  profanity  and  vul- 
garity, within  earshot  of  my  bed ; the 
musical  and  gentle  voice  of  mine  host,  the 
saloon-keeper,  alone  was  touched  with 
sobriety,  courtesy  and  moderation. 

Again  I slept,  and  again  after  a season 

I was  brought  up  out  of  the  lower  depths 
[20] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


by  a bright  light  streaming  in  through  the 
dining-room  transom.  Some  of  the  rev- 
elers had  grown  hungry;  a post-midnight 
meal  was  being  served  of  such  cold  meats 
and  left-overs  as  the  man  might  find  in  the 
woman’s  larder.  The  pot  at  last  boiled, 
and  the  jolly  meal  was  topped  off  with 
fragrant  coffee.  The  clock  struck  one, 
and  I slept  again. 

When  next  I was  awakened  it  was  by 
the  noise  of  the  scrubbing  broom,  the 
swish  of  the  hose,  and  the  heavy  thud  of 
the  ice-blocks  that  were  being  put  into  the 
refrigerator  to  keep  the  next  day’s  supply 
of  beer  cold.  One  day’s  work  was  at  last 
ended  and  another  day’s  work  had  begun. 
The  work  of  scrubbing  and  cleaning  was 
on,  and  the  clock  struck  three. 

Roos  and  I preferred  the  early  morning 

for  travel  and  midday  for  rest  and  sleep. 

By  previous  arrangement  with  mine  host, 

the  night  bar-tender  was  to  feed  my  horse 

at  four  o’clock  and  call  me  at  half-past 

four  that  we  might  be  on  the  road  at  five, 

but  the  full  glory  of  the  daylight  awak- 
[21] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


ened  me  unsummoned.  The  night  man 
was  cross  and  profane;  he  had  forgotten 
his  instructions;  he  called  down  maledic- 
tions upon  the  “boss”  who  thought  he 
“could  stand  everything.”  I escaped  to 
the  barn,  found  the  oat-bin,  fed  my  own 
horse,  was  eager  to  be  away.  While  Roos 
was  eating  her  breakfast  she  was  startled 
by  a disturbance  overhead;  there  was  a 
rustle  in  the  mow,  a fumbling,  rolling, 
and  down  into  the  manger  tumbled  a man. 
Which  was  most  scared,  the  horse,  the 
horse’s  owner,  or  the  man  himself,  I 
know  not.  Anyhow,  the  common  fright 
made  us  akin.  After  rubbing  the  clover 
dust  out  of  his  eyes  and  brushing  the  hay- 
seeds out  of  his  hair  and  off  his  clothing, 
he  said:  “There  are  three  more  bums  up 
there!  Four  of  us  chaps  belong  in  Mil- 
waukee. We  came  up  here  to  work  on 
the  trolley  line;  there  are  good  jobs  await- 
ing us;  I will  get  three  dollars  and  a half 
a day  running  a gang  of  Dagoes,  if  I ever 

get  sobered  up.  We  have  been  here 
122] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


three  days  and  we  are  getting  worse  and 
worse !” 

Then  there  was  another  fumbling  in  the 
mow  and  another  fellow  tumbled  into  the 
manger.  He  made  short  cut  of  his  wants ; 
“Say,  old  man,  won’t  you  give  us  a dime 
to  stiffen  up  on?  We  have  got  to  get  this 
dirty  brown  taste  out  of  our  mouths !” 

Number  three  dropped  down  and  num- 
ber four  followed  out  of  the  hay  mow,  and 
then  there  ensued  a friendly  and  con- 
fidential conference  of  five  of  us  over  the 
drink  problem,  the  mow-men  contributing 
the  teetotal  argument  and  the  denuncia- 
tion of  the  saloon.  The  first  spokesman, 
clutching  like  a drowning  man  at  a pass- 
ing straw,  which  straw  he  called  “Elder” 
at  a venture,  drew  from  his  pocket  a Mil- 
waukee fireman’s  star,  which  he  held  vir- 
tuously as  the  last  link  binding  him  to  his 
better  self,  the  present  tie  to  past  respect- 
ability. “I  say.  Elder,”  he  said,  “that  shows 
you  that  I was  once  away  ‘up  in  G.’  I had 
a fine  position  in  the  Fire  Department  in 
Milwaukee;  my  people  are  all  right;  pol- 

[23] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


itics  did  me;  the  bosses  ousted  me 

last  spring,  and  I have  been  going  to  the 
devil  at  a hard  gallop  ever  since,  and  he 
alone  knows  whether  I will  ever  stop  until 
he  gets  me  for  good  and  all.  These  boys 
will  tell  you  I have  been  thinking  I better 
put  a stop  to  this  foolishness  in  the  middle 
of  yon  lake.  Haven’t  I,  boys?”  And 
there  was  a gruesome  laugh  and  a “We 
had  better  all  do  it”  response. 

I do  not  try  to  put  in  the  abundant  pro- 
fanity; I cannot  reproduce  the  frankness 
which  brought  us  five  into  such  close  con- 
fidences; the  horrible  sincerity,  the  grue- 
some fraternity  of  that  blighted  early 
hour. 

One,  two,  three  of  the  mow  lodgers  stole 
away,  one  by  one,  before  the  conversation 
ended,  to  beg  first  and  then  demand  the 
“nips”  which  all  regarded  as  the  in- 
dispensable condition  of  a successful 
“straightening  up.”  Three  days  ago  they 
came  with  silver  in  their  pockets,  and  now 
they  had  not  a copper  left.  One  of  them 
menacingly  said  with  an  oath,  YThat  man 

[ 24  ] 


A Night  in  a Saloon 


has  got  to  help  straighten  us  up;  he  has 
taken  every  cent  of  our  money  and  he  can 
afford 

The’'1^rst  to  descend  from  the  mow 
stayed  with  me  until  my  horse’s  breakfast 
was  finished;  he  helped  me  saddle  my 
horse  and  would  fain  help  me  mount.  He 
pledged  me  with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  a 
good  grip  of  his  shaking  right  hand  that 
he  would  get  rid  of  these  pals  and 
straighten  up  and  be  a sober  man  before 
he  ever  saw  his  mother  again. 

The  sun  had  risen,  the  barnyards  were 
alive,  the  gardens  were  fragrant,  farm 
wives  were  bestirring  themselves ; the 
ripened  harvest  fields  were  inviting  the 
harvesters  with  abundant  promise  as  I 
rode  away.  How  the  agony  of  the  men 
from  the  hay-mow,  the  disgrace  of  that 
quartette  of  robust,  handsome  young  men 
from  Milwaukee,  the  gruesome  dreams 
and  the  more  vivid  and  horrible  realities 
of  that  night  in  a saloon,  blurred  the  glory 
of  that  radiant  morning,  jarred  on  the 
melody  of  life,  disturbed  the  serenity  of 


[25] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


what  ought  to  have  been  another  day’s 
ride  of  unclouded  beauty!  Was  that  one 
night’s  experience  to  be  taken  as  a mild, 
innocent,  minimum  illustration  of  the 
habitual  transactions  in  a saloon?  Here 
was  a white  saloon  in  a white  country; 
here  was  the  institution  at  its  best.  There 
had  been  no  cracking  of  heads,  no  shoot- 
ing of  pistols,  no  breaking  of  noses,  no 
wrecking  of  fortunes.  The  gambling,  if 
any,  was  probably  of  the  mild  sort.  The 
one  policeman  of  the  village  had  rested 
undisturbed,  and  there  were  no  court 
scandals  for  the  next  day.  What,  then,  is 
the  sociological  value  of  the  saloon  meas- 
ured at  its  best,  taken  in  its  most  inno- 
cent form? 

In  1893  the  “Committee  of  Fifty”  was 
organized  for  the  investigation  of  the 
liquor  problem.  It  consisted  of  con- 
spicuous leaders  of  thought  and  action 
throughout  the  United  States.  College 
presidents,  prominent  ministers,  men 
identified  with  great  industrial,  reforma- 
tory and  legislative  activities  were  on  the 
[26  1 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


Commission,  the  President  of  which  was 
Seth  Lowe,  then  President  of  Columbia 
College;  the  Vice-President  was  the  late 
lamented  Charles  Dudley  Warner  of 
Hartford,  the  Secretary  Prof.  Francis  G. 
Peabody  of  Harvard.  President  Eliot  and 
Carroll  D.  Wright,  then  head  of  the  De- 
partment of  Labor  at  Washington,  were 
on  the  executive  committee.  Other  names 
in  the  list  that  attracted  the  eye  were 
those  of  Felix  Adler,  Charles  G.  Bona- 
parte, John  Graham  Brooks,  Father 
Conaty,  of  the  Catholic  University  of 
Washington,  William  E.  Dodge  of  New 
York,  President  Ely  of  Madison,  Presi- 
dent Gilman  of  Johns  Hopkins,  Washing- 
ton Gladden,  Doctors  Hunger  of  New 
Haven  and  Rainsford  of  New  York,  and 
other  names  of  equal  prominence.  This 
committee  promptly  subdivided  itself  into 
small  groups  to  which  were  assigned  spe- 
cial phases  of  the  problem.  The  results  of 
these  investigations  have  been  given  to 
the  public  from  time  to  time.  At  least 
three  important  volumes  have  been  pub- 

[27] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


lished;  the  first  dealing  with  the  liquor 
problem  in  its  legislative  aspects,  compiled 
by  Frederick  H.  Wines  and  John  Koran 
under  the  direction  of  President  Eliot, 
Seth  Lowe  and  James  C.  Carter.  The 
second  volume  dealt  with  “The  Eco- 
nomic Aspects  of  the  Liquor  Problem,” 
by  John  Koran,  under  the  direction  of 
Professors  Atwater,  Farnham,  John  Gra- 
ham Brooks,  Carroll  D.  Wright  and 
others.  The  third  was  entitled  “Substi- 
tutes for  the  Saloon,”  by  Raymond  Calk- 
ings,  under  the  direction  of  Professors  E. 
R.  S.  Gould,  Francis  G.  Peabody  and 
William  M.  Sloane.  Some  of  the  chap- 
ters in  this  book  considered  the  saloon  as 
a social  center  and  studied  the  “lunch 
room  and  coffee  house  substitutes,”  with 
special  studies  of  conditions  in  representa- 
tive cities — New  York,  Chicago,  St.  Paul 
and  San  Francisco, 

R.  L.  Melendy,  then  a sociological  stu- 
dent at  Ann  Arbor,  under  the  direction  of 
Graham  Taylor  of  the  Chicago  Commons, 
made  for  this  committee  a careful  study  of 

[ 28  ] s 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


the  saloons  as  social  centers  in  Chicago. 
The  results  of  Mr,  Melendy’s  study  were 
given  wide  publicity  at  the  time  and  made 
a deep  impression.  These  academic 
studies  were  re-enforced  by  the  insistence 
of  labor  unions,  single  taxers,  sociologists, 
settlement  workers  and  other  earnest  stu- 
dents of  economic  problems,  that  the  root 
of  the  temperance  evil  is  an  economic  one; 
that  inebriety  is  largely  brought  about  by 
the  overstrain,  the  underfeeding,  the  de- 
fective housing  of  the  laboring  classes, 
and  that  no  specific  remedy  will  avail 
much  until  our  economics  are  so  modified 
that  the  conditions  of  life  are  more 
hygienic. 

With  this  contention  I have  large  sym- 
pathy, and  in  my  work  for  temperance  I 
have  placed  heavy  emphasis  upon  it.  The 
effects  of  such  studies  necessarily  lead  the 
open  mind  to  at  least  a generous  tolerance 
of  the  saloon  as  it  exists  under  present 
circumstances.  Such  studies  call  for  a 
division  of  the  question,  demanding  that 
the  worker  for  temperance  should  begin 

[29] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


further  back;  they  compel  the  critic  to 
“put  himself  in  the  other  man’s  place”  and 
look  at  the  world  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  patron  of  the  saloon,  aye,  of  the  victim 
of  the  saloon. 

It  was  with  no  regret  at  the  time  and 
with  much  gratitude  afterward  that  this 
unsolicited  emergency  gave  me  an  oppor- 
tunity to  study  at  first  hand  the  social 
phases  of  the  saloon  question  under  its 
most  harmless  conditions. 

I have  never  gone  “slumming;”  it  is  a 
business  which  only  experts  can  profit- 
ably pursue,  but  I am  glad  that  this 
chance  was  thrust  upon  me  to  observe 
the  average  workings  of  a saloon  under 
exceptionally  wholesome  conditions.  Here 
was  a saloon  doing  regular  business  under 
fair  circumstances,  if  such  words  are  fit- 
ting. If  the  words  “legitimate,”  “law- 
abiding,”  “respectable,”  “decent”  are  ever 
applicable  to  any  saloon  they  would  seem 
to  apply  to  this  one,  situated  under  cir- 
cumstances almost  idyllic  and  managed 
by  a young  man  and  woman  whose  voices 

I 30  j 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


ring  melodiously  in  my  ear  and  whose 
courtesies  to  me  and  to  my  horse  are 
graciously  enshrined  in  my  heart. 

In  the  light  of  Mr,  Calkings’  character- 
ization already  referred  to,  of  the  saloon 
as  the  most  democratic  of  institutions, 
and  of  his  studies  in  this  direction — and 
this  is  a case  where  a pinch  of  fact  is 
worth  a handful  of  theory — what  is  the 
sociological  value  of  the  saloon?  Is  it  a 
“democratic  institution?”  Is  it  a “poor 
man’s  club”  that  deserves  commendation 
at  our  hands,  or  at  least  commands  our 
patience?  Let  the  would-be  scientific 
man  beware  lest  he  be  hoisted  by  his  own 
petard.  The  last  man  to  be  lost  in  glit- 
tering generalities  is  the  would-be  devotee 
of  science.  What  are  the  cold,  plain  facts 
in  the  case?  With  all  due  respect  to  our 
economists  and  scientific  sociologists,  is 
it  not  plain  that  the  primal  cause  of  the 
saloon  is  not  economic  but  a wanton  in- 
dulgence of  an  appetite  for  stimulants, 
which  is  as  imperious  and  destructive  to 
the  man  in  the  automobile  as  to  the  man 

[31] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


in  the  mow?  Both  parted  with  their 
money,  their  judgment  and  their  self 
respect  for  that  which  did  them  no  good, 
and  they  knew  that  it  did  them  no  good. 
Imperfect  environment  may  and  does 
help  feed,  but  does  not  create  this  appe- 
tite, and  still  less  is  the  environment  of 
the  poor  man  ameliorated  or  improved  by 
its  indulgence.  The  inspiration  of  the 
saloon  is  now  and  always  has  been  the 
liquor  in  it;  the  heart  of  it  is  in  the  bottle; 
the  live  serpent  in  the  bottle  is  the  stim- 
ulant, alcohol;  “fire  water,”  the  Indians 
call  it;  aqua  fortis,  the  strong  water,  it 
was  once  called.  And  in  the  light  of 
experience  and  the  growing  conviction  of 
science,  this  alcohol  is  an  intruder  in  the 
body,  an  enemy  of  society,  a menace  to 
the  State.  It  gratifies  a morbid  appetite 
and  grows  on  what  it  feeds  on.  Socio- 
logically, physiologically,  ethically,  it  is 
bad  from  A to  Z.  So  far  as  it  goes  it  is 
demoralizing,  disintegrating  and  degrad- 
ing in  its  influence,  and  any  tendency  to 
be  indulgent  of  its  use,  to  give  it  the  free- 

[32] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


dom  of  the  home  or  the  city,  is  indulgence, 
not  liberality.  This  tendency  to  apologize 
for  the  saloon  because  there  is  something 
worse  than  the  saloon  is  not  keeping  up 
with  the  times,  but  it  is  harking  back  to 
a worse  time  when  the  horrible  stuff  de- 
bauched life  more  than  it  does  now,  when 
it  was  a disturbing  element  up  and  down 
the  social  ladder  to  a far  greater  extent 
than  now.  To  foster  and  multiply  the 
saloons  is  to  go  back  and  down  toward 
the  time  when  the  old  lords  proved  their 
hospitality  and  enjoyed  their  conviviality 
by  drinking  themselves  under  the  table, 
and  the  last  man  up  was  the  best  fellow. 
The  practices  and  indulgences  fostered  by 
the  American  saloon  under  any  conditions 
have  made  and  still  make  for  the  ruin  of 
the  individual,  the  defeat  of  the  school, 
the  disgrace  of  the  church  and  the  burden 
of  the  State.  The  American  saloon,  per- 
haps I ought  to  say  the  Anglo-Saxon 
saloon,  is  an  unique  institution;  it  stands 
apart  in  its  coarseness,  its  filth,  its  vul- 
garity and  its  damnable  alliances.  It  finds 

[33] 


On  The  Firing  Line 

no  counterpart  in  the  sunny,  music- 
haunted,  truly  social  centers,  the  wine  and 
beer  cafes  and  gardens  of  the  continent, 
where  respectable  men  and  women  go  and 
carry  their  children,  without  taint  of  dis- 
grace or  suspicion  of  prurient  or  debauch- 
ing intent. 

The  protecting  ordinances  and  laws  of 
America  preventing  the  admission  of 
women,  children  and  the  unwary  to  the 
saloon,  the  screened  doors,  the  sneaking 
sense  of  shame  with  which  one  enters,  find 
their  European  parallel  only  in  the  real 
dens  of  vice,  the  confessed  homes  of 
debauchery,  which  are  in  disgraceful  evi- 
dence in  European  as  well  as  American 
cities. 

I submit  that  the  American  saloon  as  a 
social  center  is  not  worthy  of  our  respect 
or  our  tolerance  so  long  as  it  is  a place 
into  which  a man  hesitates  to  take  his 
wife,  or  where  he  would  be  sorry  to  see 
his  boys  go,  so  long  as  it  is  a place  where 
such  vices  as  profanity,  vulgar  speech, 
vicious  politics,  gambling  and  the  un- 

[34] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


blushing  cultivation  of  the  lewd  imagery 
and  ribald  tongue  that  lead  to  the  degra- 
dation of  women  and  the  defamation  of 
the  home,  find  shelter  there. 

Scientifically,  economically,  politically, 
ethically,  the  American  saloon  at  its  best, 
even  the  white  saloon  in  “Spotless  Town 
by  the  Lake,”  is  a place  where  the  appetite 
for  strong  drink  and  its  attendant  stimu- 
lants are  not  only  gratified  but  fostered, 
and,  as  such,  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  it 
is  a cancer  in  the  body  politic  and,  like  all 
cancers,  it  has  as  yet  baffied  all  treatment 
except  that  of  the  surgeon’s  knife.  The 
X ray,  as  claimed  by  some,  may  amel- 
iorate it ; at  certain  incipient  stages  it  may 
blight  it  to  its  death,  but  the  only  sov- 
ereign treatment  for  cancer  -that  as  yet 
commends  itself  to  the  honest  practitioner, 
the  truly  scientific  man,  is  the  capital  one. 
There  are  conditions  when  life  can  be 
saved  only  by  the  amputation  of  the  dis- 
eased parts. 

Consequently  I rejoice  in  the  many 
tokens  that  the  same  conviction  increas- 

[35] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


ingly  prevails  in  regard  to  the  social  cancer 
with  men  of  science  and  men  of  business, 
the  true  politicians  and  the  real  states- 
men, those  who  have  the  well-being  of  the 
State  really  at  heart,  without  the  limita- 
tions of  dogmatic  narrowness  or  Puritanic 
grimness.  Slowly  but  surely  the  saloon  is 
being  eliminated  from  American  life;  an 
ever  increasing  area  is  being  legislated  by 
a popular,  intelligent  vote,  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  saloon,  and  there  are  no  signs  that 
this  elimination  is  to  prove  transient ; 
there  are  no  indications  of  reactionary  ten- 
dencies where  the  reform  is  once  achieved. 

Everywhere  there  are  indications  that 
popular  intelligence  is  beginning  to  accept 
the  slow  but  sure  conclusions  of  science, 
the  accumulating  testimony  of  history, 
that  alcohol  drinking  is  bad;  that  the 
saloon  is  an  unsocial  center  which  vitiates 
the  common  life  of  the  community,  mili- 
tates against  the  harmony  of  the  home 
and  depreciates  the  vitality  of  the  indi- 
vidual. 


[86] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


\j 


I am  speaking  of  no  particular  type  of 
saloon;  I am  speaking  of  the  bad,  degrad- 
ing influences  that  gather  around  all  bib- 
ulous centers,  which  foster  convivial  hab- 
its all  the  way  up  and  down  the  social 
scale,  whether  it  be  the  club  man’s  private 
wine  locker,  by  which  he  evades  the  law, 
or, the  alley  saloon  with  its  dirty  beer  mug. 
{There  is  an  ordinance  in  the  city  of  San 
'Francisco  which  makes  illegal  the  use  in 
the  saloon  of  tumblers  with  heavy  bot- 
toms because  they  make  too  efiicient 
weapons  for  cracking  skulls.  It  may  be 
a far  cry  from  the  saloon  where  a heavy 
glass  tumbler  is  against  the  law  because 
it  is  an  added  menace  to  life,  to  the  swell 
elegancies  of  the  club  where  the  wealthy, 
the  prosperous,  the  masters  of  abundance, 
clink  their  glasses  in  defiance  to  law  and 
order,  seeking  to  make  lawlessness  re- 
spectable by  the  elegance  of  their  cloth, 
the  abundance  of  the  silks  and  satins  that 
rustle  around  their  drinking  tables.  But 
all  these  belong  not  to  the  advanced 
sociology  of  the  twentieth  century;  they 

[37] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


are,  rather,  belated  survivals  of  the 
baronial  dissipations  of  mediaeval  times ; 
they  are  reminiscences  of  feudalism  and 
the  debauchery  that  was  thinly  masked 
by  the  valor  and  the  courtesies  of  a chiv- 
alry made  necessary  by  the  coarseness 
that  trampled  under  foot  the  rights  of  the 
lowly,  the  purity  of  women  and  the  honor 
of  children. 

This  is  not  necessarily  a discussion  of 
the  question  of  total  abstinence,  though  I 
have  convictions  on  this  question  based  on 
a life-long  practice.  The  question  of  the 
saloon  is  not  even  the  question  of  pro- 
hibition. If  any  considerable  number 
desire  to  drink  the  stuff,  even  to  their 
degradation  and  death,  they  may  be  per- 
mitted so  to  do  if  they  can  get  their 
“drinkables”  in  the  same  way  as  they  get 
their  eatables — in  portable  packages  with 
no  provision  made  for  the  consumption  of 
the  same  on  the  premises.  The  dispensary 
system,  which  I have  studied  at  short 
range  in  South  Carolina,  where  it  has  been 
more  thoroughly  tried  than  anywhere 

[38] 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


else  in  this  country,  was  ethically  and 
economically  a vast  improvement  on  the 
saloon  system,  but  it  broke  down  because 
of  the  simple  fact  that  the  humanity  of 
South  Carolina  was  not  sufficiently  ethical 
to  stand  the  financial  temptations  involved 
therein.  The  opportunities  for  boodling 
and  the  temptations  for  graft  proved  too 
great  for  the  office-holders  of  that  State. 
It  was  the  greed  for  money,  not  the  greed 
for  drink,  that  made  scandalous  the  law 
and  necessitated  its  repeal. 

What  can  we  do  about  it?  What  ought 
to  be  done  about  it?  Obviously  we  must 
put  ourselves  in  line  with  the  more  ad- 
vanced thought  and  the  more  lofty  prac- 
tices in  this  direction.  The  lessons  of  the 
laboratory  must  be  heeded  and  the  dictum 
of  science  enforced.  Children  must  be 
educated  to  feel  the  awful  physiological 
and  economic  waste  in  this  matter.  It 
becomes  every  good  citizen  to  stand  out 
with  the  men  and  movements  that  look 
toward  the  abolition  of  the  blighting  curse 
of  the  nasty  stuff.  It  becomes  us  to  stand 

[39] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


up  to  be  counted  whenever  opportunity 
offers;  to  cast  off  the  leading  strings  of 
effete  parties  and  their  bosses  and  to  take 
hold  of  this  most  practical  reform  in  the 
most  practical  way. 

And  next,  so  far  as  possible,  it  is  for 
such  to  exploit  all  the  substitutes  for  the 
saloon  that  are  available.  The  churches 
of  the  land  are  already  equipped  with  the 
high  outfit  for  this  high  competition. 
Where  there  is  an  opportunity  for  a glass 
of  beer  with  a biscuit  and  a slice  of 
bologna  thrown  in  for  five  cents,  let  the 
church  forces  of  the  community  see  to  it 
that  in  as  close  proximity  as  possible  to 
this  saloon  there  is  a chance  to  get  a cup 
of  coffee  for  a cent,  a doughnut  for 
another,  a sandwich  for  two  cents.  Where 
the  saloons  offer  a stool  let  the  churches 
offer  a chair,  plus  cheerful  lights,  checker 
boards,  pool  tables,  cards — anything  ex- 
cept the  insidious  intoxicants  that  tempt 
the  boys,  the  young  men,  the  homeless, 
and  the  bums  who  frequent  the  corners. 
Let  these  waifs  be  wooed  into  the  benign 

[40] 


X 


A Night  In  a Saloon 


havens,  away  from  the  malign  lairs  of  vice 
and  crime. 

Would  such  coffee  houses,  lunch  count- 
ers and  buttermilk  saloons  pay  expenses? 
At  first,  no;  decidedly  no!  But  the  ex- 
pense of  one  jail  deliverance  would  pay 
the  cost  of  one  such  experiment  for  a 
month.  Said  Horace  Mann,  “No  price  is 
too  high  to  save  a boy,  if  that  boy  is  my 
boy.” 

Would  these  experiments  succeed? 
Would  they  draw?  Probably  not  at  first. 
They  certainly  never  have  succeeded,  be- 
cause they  have  never  been  tried  in  any 
forceful,  persistent  fashion.  All  the  great 
triumphs  of  the  laboratory  have  been  born 
out  of  repeated,  costly,  tiresome,  dis- 
couraging failures,  and  the  triumphs  of 
the  social  laboratory  can  come  in  no  other 
way  and  at  no  cheaper  price. 

But  a truce  to  all  these  incidental  dis- 
cussions. Eliminate  the  preachments,  the 
prescriptions  and  the  prophecies,  if  you 
please,  but  do  not  dismiss  with  flippancy 
this  story  of  a night  in  a saloon.  Believe 

[41] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


me  to  be  an  honest  reporter,  and  you  will 
readily  see  what  I realize,  that  I have 
failed  to  put  adequate  color  into  my  story. 
I did  not  and  could  not  do  justice  to  the 
horrible  revealments. 

Do  not  forget  that  I have  presented  you 
the  saloon  in  its  most  innocent  aspect,  a 
feeble  type  of  the  seven  thousand  or  more 
such  places  that  are  open  every  night  in 
the  week  in  the  city  of  Chicago  alone,  en- 
ticing boys,  husbands,  brothers,  neighbors. 

Is  it  not  worth  while,  then,  to  try  in 
any  way,  in  every  way  possible,  to  bring 
ourselves  and  the  community  up  and  for- 
ward to  the  front  lines  of  the  twentieth 
century  civilization  rather  than  hark  back 
to  the  weaknesses,  the  indulgences  of  a 
more  ignorant  past  and  a less  developed 
intelligence? 


[42] 


Two 

Neighbors 


Two  Neighbors 


I WANT  to  tell  of  two  neighbors  with 
whom  my  acquaintance  extended  over 
half  a century,  during  all  of  which 

V. 

time  I enjoyed  their  confidence  and,  to  a 
large  degree,  their  companionship  and 
comradeship.  They  were  real  neighbors — 
kind,  accommodating,  willing,  helpful  and 
courteous.  They  were  humble,  modest 
neighbors,  to  whom  no  toil  was  mean  or 
unwelcome.  Though  always  needing  a 
day’s  work  and  glad  of  the  money  in- 
volved, they  ever  put  a touch  of  neighborly 
kindness,  disinterested  comradeship,  a 
desire  to  oblige,  into  their  tasks.  In  every 
such  exchange  I think  there  was  on  both 
sides  an  unestimated  quantity  of  good  will 
which  was  never  rendered  in  the  account- 
ing. 

The  lives  of  these  neighbors  were  hum- 
ble, rural,  retiring  and  obscure.  My  rela- 

[45] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


tion  to  them  was  necessarily  intermittent, 
uneventful,  commonplace,  and  so  unim- 
portant to  the  big  world  outside  that  it  is 
almost  a breach  of  confidence,  an  offense 
to  the  proprieties  to  think,  much  less 
speak  of  them  to  the  busy,  bustling  world 
far  removed  from  the  beautiful,  quiet, 
homelike  little  country  graveyard  where 
now  the  dust  of  my  two  neighbors  rests 
in  peace.  The  snows  of  winters,  the  flow- 
ers of  summers,  have  rested  on  their 
tombs.  And  still  my  love  for  them  pleads 
for  a memorial  word,  demands  a funeral 
sermon  that  has  not  been  preached. 

The  full  lesson  of  their  lives,  rendered 
plain  by  death,  could  not  of  course  have 
been  spoken  in  that  country-side,  but  now, 
with  the  neighborhood  courtesy,  family 
sensitiveness  and  personal  acquaintance 
all  eliminated,  I can,  without  breach  of 
confidence,  divulge  as  much  of  the  story 
of  “Bob”  and  “Billy”  as  will  enable  them 
through  it  to  speak  the  words  they  often 
whisper  in  my  ear  to  a brotherhood  far 

[46] 


Two  Neighbors 


beyond  their  wildest  dreams  or  furthest 
ken  when  alive. 

While  I would  shield  them  with  silence 
and  shroud  them  with  the  courtesies  of 
love  and  respect,  the  voice  of  conscience, 
an  accusing  voice,  like  that  in  the  story  of 
old,  says  to  me,  “Where  are  thy  broth- 
ers?” I must  speak,  then,  for  “The  voice 
of  their  blood  crieth  unto  me  from  the 
ground.”  And  I am  sure  I shall  be  par- 
doned by  their  spirits  and  their  friends  for 
lifting  the  curtain  just  a little  that  through 
me  they  may  minister  to  the  solemn  truth 
to  which  their  sad  experiences  witness. 

“Bob”  was  a harmless  citizen,  a kindly 
neighbor,  handy  around  the  house ; one  of 
those  men  who  had  a woman’s  touch;  he 
could  wash,  iron,  mop  the  floor,  put  the 
kitchen  in  order  and,  at  need,  prepare  a 
palatable  meal.  He  was  a man  to  help  in 
time  of  strain,  whether  the  strain  was  in 
the  farmhouse,  garden  or  harvest  field. 
He  was  ready  to  piece  out  the  widow’s 
strength  in  her  little  garden  plot,  to  mow 
her  lawn  and  trim  her  trees,  and  equally 

[47] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


willing  to  take  his  pitchfork  at  the  straw- 
pile  and  work  at  the  dusty  end  of  the 
threshing  machine.  Through  many  years 
of  our  midsummer  life  at  Tower  Hill, 
“Bob”  was  the  handy  man  who  set  the 
cottages  in  order,  who  prepared  the  Pa- 
vilion for  the  big  Sunday  rallies  and 
cleared  the  debris  on  the  Monday  follow- 
ing. Children  loved  “Bob;”  women 
trusted  him;  men,  who  came  with  their 
culture,  their  diplomas  and  degrees  for  a 
rest  under  the  trees,  recognized  that 
“Bob”  was  something  more  than  a hired 
“hand”  to  help  them  out  by  the  hour  or  by 
the  day. 

“Bob”  had  a vigorous,  though  a tainted, 
inheritance.  “Old  Pete,”  the  father,  was  a 
jolly,  robust,  cheerful,  competent  Welsh 
pioneer  who  came  into  the  lead  regions  of 
Wisconsin  in  the  early  days.  He  was  one 
of  the  best  known  and  most  indispensable 
hands  in  the  shot-tower  industries  of  pre- 
railroad days  at  “Old  Helena,”  which,  by 
the  strange  mutations  of  western  life,  were 
long  since  translated  into  the  comforts  and 

[48] 


Two  Neighbors 


non-material  industries  of  the  Tower  Hill 
Encampment.  The  shaft  down  which  “Old 
Pete”  used  to  drop  the  molten  lead  as 
death-dealing  shot  now  yields  the  life-giv- 
ing water  which  the  winds  lift  to  the  top 
of  the  hill  that  it  may  be  distributed  to  the 
summer  cottages  of  Tower  Hill. 

But  “Old  Pete”  was  a notorious,  boister- 
ous drinking  man  in  the  later  years  of  his 
life,  only  out  of  his  cups  when  they  were 
out  of  reach.  And  poor  “Bob,”  the  son, 
weaker  in  body,  gentler  in  spirit,  more  cul- 
tured in  manner,  inherited  the  appetite 
and  walked  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father. 
I cannot  remember  when  “Bob’s”  weak- 
ness was  not  understood  and  accepted  as 
inevitable  by  his  sympathetic  neighbors. 
“Bob”  enlisted  in  the  same  artillery  com- 
pany in  which  I served,  but  he  was  dis- 
charged before  we  ever  left  the  State. 
Whatever  the  reason  may  have  been  that 
was  entered  upon  the  roll,  the  real  cause 
was  this  infirmity,  which  rendered  him 
useless  to  the  government.  But  “Bob” 
meant  well;  he  was  a loyal  citizen.  In 


On  The  Firing  Line 


after  years  he  prized  the  comradeship  and 
cherished  the  comrades.  In  early  years  he 
faithfully  started  to  the  annual  reunions, 
but  seldom  was  able  to  answer  to  his 
name  at  roll  call,  for  poor  “Bob”  was  out 
of  the  service  before  the  bugle  sounded, 
and  in  later  years  he  gave  up  the  attempt 
altogether. 

In  due  time  “Bob”  married  and  built 
himself  a comfortable  home.  He  was 
good  to  his  wife  and  children,  who  dearly 
loved  him.  He  was  respected  by  all  his 
neighbors.  But  year  by  year  he  went  on 
earning  and  drinking;  a large  part  of  the 
result  of  one  day’s  industry  would 
promptly  find  its  way  on  the  next  day 
into  the  tills  of  the  saloon-keepers  in  the 
village  three  miles  away.  The  farmers 
around  accepted  it  as  a neighborly  obliga- 
tion to  bring  poor  “Bob”  home  at  night, 
helpless,  over  the  road  which  a few  hours 
before  he  had  traveled  with  alert  and  sup- 
ple step.  Year  by  year  his  life  grew  more 
pathetic.  Men  smiled,  women  pitied,  chil- 
dren joked,  but  nobody  interfered.  While 

[50] 


Two  Neighbors 


the  temptation  and  the  opportunity  re- 
mained any  interference  would  seem  use- 
less; until  at  last,  many  years  ago  now, 
the  heart,  weary  of  its  persistent  fight 
against  a deadly  poison,  gave  it  up,  and 
poor  “Bob,”  dear  “Bob,”  was  found  in  a 
village  haymow,  into  which  he  had  crept 
to  sleep  away  his  helplessness,  dead.  The 
redeeming  sleep  had  indeed  come,  the 
sleep  that  knew  no  waking.  Quietly  and 
benignantly  the  imprisoned  spirit  was  re- 
leased from  the  nagging  fetters ; the 
tyrannical  leash  of  the  flesh  was  at  last 
broken. 

They  said  it  was  one  of  the  largest 
funerals  known  for  many  years  in  that 
country-side,  and  everybody  said,  and  felt 
it  too,  “Poor  Bob!  he  had  no  enemy  save 
the  one  fell  enemy  that  undid  him.”  The 
helpful  offices  of  this  kind  and  gentle  man 
were  testified  to  on  every  side.  “Bob” 
had  passed  beyond  the  tempter’s  reach. 
Everybody  pitied,  and  few  blamed.  His 
memory  in  that  country-side  is  as  green 
as  the  grass  that  grows  on  his  grave.  His 

[51] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


record,  with  the  exception  of  this  weak- 
ness, is  pure  as  the  winter  snows  that  en- 
shroud him. 


“Billy,”  my  other  neighbor,  had  perhaps 
a more  promising  inheritance.  His  father 
was  an  aggressive,  efficient,  inventive 
Yankee,  with  a mechanical  ingenuity  that 
amounted  almost  to  genius.  He  was  the 
last  Director  of  the  shot-tower  at  Old 
Helena,  under  whose  skillful  management 
the  manufacture  of  shot  was  brought  to 
what,  in  the  ante-bellum  days,  was  a sur- 
prising state  of  perfection.  “Billy”  inher- 
ited much  of  his  father’s  ingenuity  and 
mechanical  skill.  He  was  wonderfully 
handy  with  tools  of  every  kind.  He  was 
“Jack  of  all  trades”  for  Tower  Hill;  could 
build  a stone  wall,  patch  a roof,  paint  a 
house,  or  lay  a carpet.  The  neighbors 
would  accept  as  accurate  “Billy’s”  esti- 
mate of  a wood  lot  or  a plowed  field  when 
he  had  paced  it.  He  was  full  of  wood- 
craft; he  knew  the  haunts  and  habits  of 

the  wild  animals;  he  was  the  last  of  the 
[62] 


Two  Neighbors 


trappers  in  that  country-side.  He  was  the 
lone  fisherman,  and  the  fish  diet  of  Tower 
Hill  ran  low  when  “Billy”  forgot  or 
neglected  to  set  his  lines. 

Nature  meant  “Billy”  to  be  a hand- 
some, well-bodied,  efficient  man,  but  some 
untoward  accident  in  babyhood  marred 
the  delicate  mechanism,  and  the  splendid 
column  that  would  have  lifted  the  hand- 
some curly  head  into  the  full  proportions 
of  a man  doubled  in  upon  itself,  making 
of  “Billy”  a human  interrogation  point, 
a grotesque  little  hunchback.  But  the 
clear  blue  eye,  the  melodious  and  winning 
voice,  the  self-respecting  soul,  gave  an 
astonishing  degree  of  muscular  vigor  and, 
as  I have  already  hinted,  of  manual 
efficiency  to  the  thwarted  body. 

In  due  time  “Billy”  married  and  made 
for  himself  a valley  home.  He  had  the 
best  garden  in  the  neighborhood;  he  mar- 
keted the  earliest  melons;  he  might  have 
had  a comfortable  and  happy  home,  but 
he  became  an  “habitual.”  I cannot  re- 
member when  “Billy’s”  regular  visits  to 

[53] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


the  village  were  not  taken  as  a matter  of 
course.  He  could  earn  money  easily.  He 
did  earn  much,  but  most  of  it  went  to  the 
unsavory  and  unattractive,  nasty  little 
saloons  in  the  village,  and  everybody  took 
it  for  granted  that  it  was  “Billy’s”  right 
to  waste  himself,  to  jeopardize  the  future 
of  his  children,  to  darken  his  little  home- 
stead with  the  blight  that  hangs  over  a 
drunkard’s  home,  and  that  it  was  the  right 
of  these  saloon-keepers  to  take  from  his 
helpless  hands  his  hard-earned  money,  to 
send  out  of  their  doors  a maudlin,  quar- 
relsome, helpless  man  who  had  come  in 
bright,  intelligent,  self-reliant,  a genial 
citizen. 

The  neighbors  were  kind  to  “Billy”  as 
they  were  to  “Bob.”  They  would  pick  him 
up  along  the  roadside  in  his  imbecility  and 
give  him  a lift  in  his  helplessness.  But 
“Billy’s”  splendid  inheritance,  his  clear 
spirit,  his  otherwise  strong  will  and  supe- 
rior intelligence,  were  no  match  for  the  fell 
poison  which  sooner  or  later  makes  sure  of 
its  victim,  and  at  last,  in  the  early  gray  of 

[54] 


Two  Neighbors 


life,  “Billy”  sickened.  He  flattered  him- 
self, or  concealed  his  humiliation  in  the 
thought  that  he  had  been  poisoned  by 
some  unwholesome  milk  drank  during  an 
absence  from  home.  But  the  doctor 
knew  and  all  the  neighbors  surmised  what 
“Billy”  knew  better  than  any  of  them,  that 
the  organs  were  worn  out  and  were  giving 
up  the  fight;  and  in  the  springtime  of  his 
old  age,  as  of  his  garden,  he  slept,  and  the 
dust  of  the  little  body  rests  in  the  beautiful 
little  cemetery  that  overlooks  the  winding, 
unwearying,  unhasting  river.  Here  in  the 
same  quiet  “God’s  Acre”  rest  the  bodies 
of  “Bob”  and  “Billy,”  the  two  “drunk- 
ards” of  that  country-side.  It  pains  me 
to  write  the  word.  How  it  grates  upon 
the  ear,  particularly  of  those  who  knew 
and  through  it  all  loved  and  respected 
“Bob”  and  “Billy!”  Through  all  the  long 
years  of  dissipation,  neither  of  them  lost 
the  fine  sense  of  honor,  the  business  integ- 
rity, the  purity  of  life  and,  except  when 
maddened  by  drink,  the  purity  of  speech 
and  the  courteous  demeanor.  Spite  of  all 

[55] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


that  has  been  said,  the  fact  must  be  em- 
phatically stated  that  “Bob”  and  “Billy” 
were  gentlemen,  respected  by  their  neigh- 
bors, and  when  I return  to  my  old  haunts 
I miss  their  cordial  greeting  and  their 
hearty  welcome.  They  have  a place  in  the 
line  of  the  absentees  whose  shadows  rise 
benignly  before  me  as  I walk  or  drive 
along  those  quiet  country  ways,  in  the 
shade  of  those  benignant  trees  and  the 
shelter  of  the  protecting  blufifs  that  have 
been  and  will  be  my  comfort  and  strength 
from  boyhood  to  the  end. 

Because  I loved  and  respected  them  I 
lay  this  tribute  upon  their  graves,  hoping 
that  it  will  add  a touch  of  sincerity  to  the 
painful  confession  I must  make. 

I who  witnessed  the  struggle,  saw  the 
inevitable  decline,  realized  the  helpless- 
ness of  the  victims  in  the  bonds  of  an 
appetite  which  had  long,  long  since  passed 
beyond  their  control,  felt  the  hopelessness 
of  the  situation,  stood  by  with  listless 
hands  with  the  community  of  that  coun- 
try-side, consenting  to  the  earthly  damna- 

[56] 


Two  Neighbors 


tion  of  my  two  neighbors.  I had  no  vote 
there,  but  I neighbored  with  the  intelli- 
gent men  who  affected  public  spirit,  and 
who  did  have  votes,  and  who  for  forty 
years  or  more  issued  official  warrant  and 
public  license,  sometimes  to  four  or  more 
men  in  that  little  rural  village  of  less  than 
a thousand  souls,  to  lay  their  snares  and 
bait  their  traps  for  “Bob”  and  “Billy.” 
These  four  or  more  men,  like  all  the  voters 
of  that  town  and  the  taxpayers  of  that 
community,  knew  that  “Bob”  and  “Billy” 
were  as  helpless  in  the  presence  of  their 
temptations  as  is  the  lamb  in  the  jaws  of 
the  wolf.  The  saloon-keepers,  as  well  as 
all  the  men  who  licensed  them,  knew 
perfectly  well  that  day  by  day,  week  by 
week,  month  by  month,  year  by  year, 
through  a long  lifetime,  the  hard  won 
earnings  of  these  two  men  went  into  the 
tills  of  those  who  gave  in  return  what 
they  knew  and  everybody  knew  would 
promptly  craze  the  brain,  confuse  the 
judgment,  stun  the  senses,  bring  partial 
paralysis  to  muscle  and  nerve,  so  they 

[57] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


could  not  walk  or  talk  straight.  The 
saloon-keepers,  as  well  as  the  men  who 
legalized  their  business,  knew  also  that 
“Bob”  and  “Billy”  were  no  sociological 
freaks,  no  exceptional  men,  unrelated, 
standing  alone,  but  that  they  were  only 
two  individual  conspicuous  types  of  an 
ever-lengthening  line  of  men  in  that  com- 
munity, some  of  them  mere  boys,  who 
were  in  training  for  the  same  imbecility, 
on  the  road  to  the  same  helplessness. 
“Bob”  and  “Billy”  simply  stood  at  the 
head,  perchance,  of  a staggering  proces- 
sion, and  when  the  blessed  release  came 
and  the  prison  gates  were  thrown  open 
and  the  enslaved  went  free,  there  were 
plenty  to  keep  up  the  business,  to  close  up 
the  file,  to  make  “Bob’s”  and  “Billy’s” 
places  good.  Those  saloon-keepers  knew 
and  all  the  voters  knew  that  “Bob”  and 
“Billy”  had  children  who  suffered  from 
the  humiliations,  who  were  threatened  by 
the  gruesome  inheritance,  and  who  were 
liable  to  pass  the  blighting  plague  down 
through  unborn  generations.  They  knew 

[58] 


Two  Neighbors 


that  “Bob”  and  “Billy”  had  wives  who 
were  being  humiliated,  who  were  break- 
ing their  hearts  and  wearing  out  their 
lives  under  the  relentless  tyranny. 

When  the  storm  gullies  a country  road 
and  pitfalls  menace  the  safety  of  man  or 
beast  that  travels  thereon,  the  town  is 
prompt  in  repairing  the  damage;  at  least, 
knowing  its  responsibility  in  the  case,  it 
hastens  to  post  a danger  signal  and  put  a 
fence  around  the  menace  while  the  danger 
lasts.  When  a bridge  is  built  the  town  is 
required  by  law  to  safeguard  it  with  ade- 
quate railing,  and  in  default  of  these  pro- 
visions the  town  is  responsible  for  any 
damages  incurred. 

I know  the  perplexities  of  the  temper- 
ance problem;  I know  the  difficulty  of 
drawing  lines  between  the  responsibility 
and  the  dependence  of  the  individual,  but 
here  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  public 
not  only  consented  to  but  created  the  pit- 
falls  in  the  roads  over  which  “Bob”  and 
“Billy”  traveled.  There  is  no  shadow  of 
a doubt  that  for  over  a quarter  of  a cen- 

[59] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


tury  these  men  were  maimed  with  defect- 
ive organisms.  The  rickets  that  deformed 
the  body  of  ‘'Billy”  was  no  more  real, 
actual,  demonstrable  a physical  defect 
than  the  rickets  of  the  will,  so  closely 
allied  thereto,  which  m^de  it  impossible 
for  him  to  go  straight  by  the  open  door  of 
the  saloon,  or  to  take  that  boasted  “first” 
glass  and  then  stop,  of  which  the  average 
man  in  his  conceit  is  so  proud.  The  great 
God  alone  can  answer  the  question, 
“Who  did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents?” 
in  regard  to  our  “Bob,”  but  one  thing  is 
sure — that  all  the  benign  forces  in  his  na- 
ture (and  they  were  many),  all  the  re- 
straining and  helpful  forces  in  his  envi- 
ronment, including  loyal  wife,  loving  chil- 
dren and  kind  neighbors,  were  inadequate 
to  carry  him  over  the  bridge  to  which 
there  were  no  railings.  There  is  no  dis- 
puting the  fact  that  for  many  years  those 
two  neighbors  of  mine  were  moral  crip- 
ples, defectives,  unable  to  care  for  them- 
selves unaided ; much  more  so  than  if  they 

had  been  blind,  deaf,  or  wanting  in  legs 
[ 60  1 


Two  Neighbors 


or  arms.  And  there  is  no  disputing  the 
further  fact  that  had  their  defects  been 
of  this  latter  kind,  the  community,  not 
only  by  private  beneficences  but  by  civic 
forethought,  would  have  pieced  out  their 
deficiencies,  shielded  them  from  danger, 
and  helped  them  through  the  mazes  of  the 
world. 

It  is  with  pain  and  humiliation,  then, 
that  I confess  that  I as  a neighbor  failed 
in  my  neighborly  obligations,  and  still 
more  guilty  would  I have  been  if  I had 
had  the  rights  of  a citizen  neighbor  and 
had  still  not  persistently  and  continuously 
interposed  a helping,  guiding  and  prevent- 
ing hand.  I believe  that  the  voters  of  that 
little  hamlet  egregiously  failed  in  their 
duty  when  they  failed  to  shield  and  direct 
those  crippled  neighbors  of  theirs  and 
mine. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  saloon  problem 
in  a nutshell,  a concrete  illustration  of  the 
general  situation.  The  saloons,  which 
so  mar  the  beauty,  sanity  and  respectabil- 
ity of  that  village,  helped  debauch  and 
[61] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


continued  to  pauperize  my  two  neighbors, 
and  they  were  permitted  to  continue  their 
fell  work  until  they  had  secured  the  last 
nickel,  drained  to  the  dregs  the  cup  of 
life  of  “Bob”  and  “Billy,”  which  dregs 
indeed  they  helped  make  bitter  as  gall  and 
wormwood. 

Now  these  little  tragedies  of  the  coun- 
tryside, this  spiritual  calamity  that  befell 
two  innocent  farm  neighbors  of  mine, 
that  steeped  in  woe  two  little  homes  in 
obscure  little  valleys  of  Wisconsin,  three 
miles  away  from  no  place,  is  typical.  The 
story  of  “Bob”  and  “Billy”  is  duplicated  in 
every  hamlet,  multiplied  by  ten  in  every 
small  city,  and  by  tens  of  thousands  in 
every  great  metropolis.  The  saloons  every- 
where, in  the  big  city  as  well  as  in  the 
rural  railway  station,  are  in  the  man-de- 
stroying business,  and  the  very  attempt  to 
hedge  them  about  with  license  and  police 
regulation  arraigns  their  business  as  dan- 
gerous, classes  the  saloon-keepers  as  traf- 
fickers in  poison,  as  men  who  menace  the 

well-being  of  the  community.  We  do  not 
[62] 


Two  Neighbors 


have  to  license  the  selling  of  cheese  or  of 
bread,  but  we  do  have  to  circumscribe  in 
every  way  possible  the  trade  in  prussic 
acid,  morphine,  calomel,  nitro-glycerin 
and  alcoholic  compounds  of  every  descrip- 
tion. 

Now  the  licenses,  which  are  really  de- 
signed to  circumscribe  the  power  of  the 
saloons  for  evil,  to  limit  their  nefarious 
influence,  but  which  actually  contribute 
to  the  indifference  and  complacency  of 
conscience  on  behalf  of  the  voter  and  the 
taxpayer,  are  justified  only  on  one  or 
more  of  these  three  possible  counts,  viz: 

1.  That  the  license  money  is  a civic 
convenience,  perchance  a corporate  neces- 
sity; without  it  the  modern  city  could  not 
sustain  its  police  systems  or  adequately 
support  its  schools. 

2.  The  drink  habit  is  so  persistent,  the 
appetite  for  stimulants  so  universal,  the 
demand  for  grog  so  imperative,  that  it 
cannot  be  suppressed,  hence  must  be  con- 
trolled. The  saloons  are  licensed  that 

[63] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


they  may  be  held  in  leash;  they  are  listed 
that  they  may  be  watched,  curbed  and 
controlled. 

3.  The  state  must  not  interfere  with 
the  liberty  of  choice.  We  have  no  right 
to  make  men  sober  or  virtuous  by  law,  we 
are  told.  This  is  the  Personal  Liberty 
claim. 

These  three  defenses,  studied  in  the 
light  of  recent  developments,  analyzed  by 
the  help  of  latest  science  and  the  growing 
experience  of  communities,  seem  to  render 
something  like  the  following  conclusions: 

First,  the  revenue  argument.  To  state 
it  is  to  condemn  and  refute  it.  What, 
license  a saloon  in  order  to  get  money  to 
pay  for  the  police  force  and  courts  neces- 
sary to  handle  the  petty  crimes  which  the 
saloons  have  chiefly  created  ? The  ex- 
pensiveness of  the  constabulary,  jails, 
prisons,  fire  departments,  which  every- 
body knows  are  largely  made  necessary 
by  the  fell  work  of  the  saloon,  has  been 
presented  so  often  that  our  ears  have 
grown  dull  to  it.  I am  sure  there  are  well- 

[64] 


Two  Neighbors 


meaning  saloon-keepers,  possibly  decent 
saloons,  but  none  are  more  willing  than 
those  saloon-keepers  who  believe  in  a de- 
cent saloon  to  admit  that  their  business  is 
allied  to  lawlessness,  coarseness  and 
crime.  And  no  one  knows  better  than 
those  saloon-keepers  that  a saloon  busi- 
ness kept  within  the  limits  of  decency,  as 
they  themselves  understand  it,  is  a losing 
business.  A law-abiding  saloon-keeper  is 
foreordained  to  bankruptcy.  The  time 
was  when  honest  business  men  were  solic- 
itous for  the  prosperity  of  the  town  that 
was  bereft  of  its  saloons.  They  looked 
upon  an  anti-saloon  agitation  as  a menace 
to  trade;  but  that  much-threatened 
“green  grass”  that  used  to  grow  in  the 
streets  in  the  “Dry”  town  has  withered 
long  ago.  A thousand  towns  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi valley  have  disproved  the  foolish 
theory.  Villages  and  cities  without  num- 
ber are  growing  prosperous,  happy  and 
jolly  on  every  hand  without  the  saloon 
and  confessedly  on  account  of  its  absence. 

The  second  justification  of  the  license, 

[65] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


on  the  ground  that  it  is  the  only  practical 
thing  to  do,  that  saloons  must  be,  that 
drink  habits  are  incurable  and  must  be 
controlled,  is  also  negatived  with  wonder- 
ful efficiency  by  the  most  recent  studies  in 
sociology,  founded  upon  and  justified  by 
the  growing  “Dry”  territory  of  the  United 
States.  Not  much  longer  can  a man  lay 
claim  to  intelligence  or  honesty  who  in- 
sists that  a community,  large  or  small, 
must  necessarily  cater  to  vice,  and  that  the 
standards  of  purity  and  sobriety  which  the 
individual  believes  in  must  be  lowered  by 
the  ordinances  of  that  community.  No 
laws  are  wholly  effective;  no  regulations 
are  adequately  enforced,  but  not  on  that 
account  does  the  wise  statesman  urge  their 
elimination  from  the  statute  books. 

The  better  elements  of  the  community 
have  too  long  truckled  to  the  vicious  and 
the  dissipated.  Politicians  have  assumed 
that  good  causes  must  make  friends  with 
vice;  that  even  high-minded  men  must 
sometimes  appeal  to  the  saloon  and  estab- 
lish their  headquarters  in  the  back  rooms 
[66] 


Two  Neighbors 


of  the  same  if  they  are  to  win.  But  that 
time  is  fast  going  by.  Fortunately,  this 
is  no  longer  a question  to  be  settled  by 
arguments.  There  are  facts  in  the  case  to 
demonstrate  that  there  are  more  sober 
than  dissipated  voters  in  the  community; 
that  the  right-minded  can  outvote  the 
wrong-minded;  that  the  worthy  can  to  a 
degree  control  and  that  they  should  do  so 
in  the  affairs  of  the  community.  Just  as 
fast  as  this  principle  is  recognized  the 
drunkard-making  mill,  the  insinuating 
pitfalls  for  our  ‘‘Bobs”  and  our  “Billys” 
must  go,  and  they  will  go  independently 
of  the  question  of  ultimate  teetotal  ab- 
stinence. If  one  must  gratify  a lamen- 
table love  of  stimulants,  if  one’s  nerves  are 
so  debauched  that  he  cannot  live  the 
temperate  and  sober  life,  let  him  secure  his 
alcoholic  poisons  as  he  does  his  arsenic 
and  other  drugs — under  the  direction  of 
his  doctor,  in  packages,  to  be  consumed 
in  solitude,  reducing  thereby  their  power 
for  evil  to  others  and  circumscribing  their 
dangers  to  himself  to  the  minimum. 

[97] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


The  times  are  ripe  for  experimentation 
on  these  lines;  the  call  is  for  sociological 
laboratory  work  on  a large  scale.  The 
demands  of  science,  of  statesmanship,  as 
well  as  of  religion,  enforce  the  old  sum- 
mons of  the  Bible  legend;  we  are  our 
“brothers’  keepers,”  and  the  blood  of  the 
fallen  calls  to  us  from  the  ground.  The 
case  is  not  so  hopeless  as  it  seems;  the  situ- 
ation is  not  so  desperate  as  is  urged.  The 
city  is  not  always  to  be  a carbuncle  on  the 
neck  of  the  body  politic,  a place  where  de- 
generate tissue  is  inflamed  by  the  precipita- 
tion of  impurities,  but  it  is  to  be  the  flower- 
ing of  the  social  organism,  the  efflorescence 
and  fruitage,  the  finest  output  on  the  upper 
branches  of  the  tree  of  life.  We  can  not 
only  do  much  more  than  we  are  now  doing 
to  save  our  “Bobs”  and  our  “Billys,”  but 
we  can  greatly  decrease  the  manufacture 
of  such.  We  can  put  the  nefarious  busi- 
ness in  its  right  light  and  let  it  be  seen 
that  the  poor  victims  of  this  business  are, 
in  the  last  analysis  at  least,  moral  crip- 
ples, spiritual  dwarfs,  diseased  victims, 
[68] 


Two  Neighbors 


broken  men,  appealing  to  us  for  pity  and 
demanding  of  us  remedial  treatment. 

The  third  justification  of  the  saloon — 
the  “Personal  Liberty”  cry,  the  right  of  a 
m2vti  to  debauch  himself  if  he  will,  also 
demands  and  is  receiving  attention. 

What  of  this?  The  cry  of  “Liberty”  is 
a popular  one  in  America,  and  justly  so. 
Freedom  is  a precious  achievement, 
bought  with  a great  price.  I yield  to  no 
man  in  my  loyalty  to  the  sacred  rights  of 
the  soul  to  carve  out  its  own  destiny;  to 
win  its  translation  through  mistakes;  to 
rise  by  virtue  of  its  blunders.  The  only 
heaven  I believe  in  and  hope  for  is  reached 
by  the  road  which  passes  the  entrances  to 
hell.  Salvation  comes  only  to  the  soul 
that  has  escaped  damnation.  But  Liberty 
is  no  longer  a thing  of  the  individual.  Per- 
sonal liberty  ends  where  public  weal  be- 
gins. My  rights  stop  when  they  encroach 
upon  the  rights  of  the  community.  De- 
mocracy may  be  not  inaptly  defined  as 
the  curbing  of  the  individual’s  liberty  for 
the  sake  of  the  public  good.  It  is  the  mis- 

[69] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


sion  of  the  State  to  defend  the  diseased 
and  the  defective  from  the  arrogant  en- 
croachment of  the  strong  and  the  ade- 
quate; to  protect  the  unwary  from  the 
subtle  exploitations  of  the  competent.  ;No 
liberty  must  be  granted  to  the  New  Or- 
leans householder  to  leave  uncovered  his 
cisterns,  that  breed  the  deadly  mosquito 
in  yellow  fever  time.  The  multi-million- 
aire has  no  more  right  than  the  junk  man 
to  dump  his  garbage  into  the  back  yard 
that  it  may  breed  pestilence.  The  prince 
and  the  beggar,  the  philosopher  and  the 
fool  must  respect  the  ethics  of  the  road, 
the  safeguards  of  the  street  and  the  time 
limits.  The  automobile  and  the  push-cart 
alike  must  “keep  to  the  right,”  as  the  law 
directs.  In  this  way  only  can  the  freedom 
of  the  road  be  secured.  The  freedom  of 
the  locomotive  is  found  on  the  track,  not 
in  the  ditch.  It  must  keep  to  the  rails  if  it 
is  to  know  the  liberty  of  action. 

Thus  it  is  that  slowly  but  surely  the 
logic  of  the  situation  is  clearing.  The 
problem  of  personal  liberty  is  being 

[70] 


Two  Neighbors 


changed,  or  rather  deepened,  into  personal 
obligation.  The  shallow  and  selfish  man 
prates  about  his  “rights;”  the  profound 
and  altruistic  man  is  concerned  about  his 
duties.  The  “boss”  uses  the  public;  the 
patriot  serves  the  public.  We  are  our 
“brothers’  keepers.”  The  supposed  private 
interests,  the  still  more  insinuating  claims 
of  party  and  prejudices  of  sect,  must  give 
way  and  the  community  rise  in  its  cor- 
porate might  and  vindicate  its  freedom, 
which  is  found  only  in  the  sanity  of  the 
body  politic.  The  whole  cannot  be  un- 
mindful of  the  parts.  The  foot  cannot  say 
to  the  head,  “I  have  no  need  of  thee !” 

A Supreme  Judge  of  the  State  of  Illinois 
has  recently  been  telling  the  citizens  of 
Illinois  that  they  have  as  good  laws  as 
they  deserve,  as  wise  an  administration  as 
they  have  a right  to  ask  for,  as  noble  a 
government  as  they  can  enforce.  This  is 
only  half  the  truth.  The  other  half  is 
equally  patent.  The  good  people  of  this 
commonwealth  have  not  expressed  them- 
selves in  their  full  might,  and  under  pres- 

[71] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


ent  management  they  cannot  thus  express 
themselves.  The  noblest  elements  of  so- 
ciety have  not  yet  been  adequately  con- 
sulted, either  in  the  legislative  or  execu- 
tive departments  of  our  country.  There 
have  been  disturbing  elements  in  our  civic 
life  that  have  divided  the  competent,  con- 
fused the  sober,  and  defeated  the  worthy. 
Of  these  disturbing  elements  I venture  to 
mention  three. 

1.  The  sordid  anxiety  for  prosperity; 
the  love  of  gain;  the  eagerness  for  profit; 
the  horrible  debauching  of  the  dollar. 
This  induces  even  church  members  to 
build  and  rent  houses  to  debauching  in- 
dustries; it  has  inspired  mighty  combina- 
tions of  capital  to  embark  in  body-destroy- 
ing and  soul-crippling  enterprises.  So  the 
inspirations  that  multiply  and  protect  the 
saloon  spring  chiefly  not  out  of  the  love  of 
stimulants,  not  even  out  of  the  passion  for 
society,  the  commendable  need  for  com- 
munion and  companionship,  but  out  of  the 
love  of  the  dollar.  It  is  not  the  appetite 

[72] 


Two  Neighbor^ 

for  drink,  but  the  appetite  for  wealth  that 
we  have  to  cope  with  primarily. 

2.  The  tyranny  of  party  politics,  the 
humiliating  slavery  of  the  voter  to  his 
clique  and  his  clan.  The  central  issue  in 
the  life  of  the  municipality  today  is  never 
decided  on  its  merits.  We  are  never  able 
to  rally  the  forces  of  sobriety  on  the  one 
hand  and  of  inebriety  on  the  other.  The 
would-be  friends  of  temperance,  the  guar- 
dians of  the  weak  and  the  unwary,  are 
constantly  found  casting  their  votes  for  a 
liquor-soaked  saloon-keeper  in  his  filth 
and  his  debauchery,  if  he  belongs  to  their 
own  party,  rather  than  joining  issues  with 
the  noble  and  the  sober  in  the  interest  of 
a creditable  candidate  who  belongs  to  the 
other  party,  though  there  be  no  possible 
party  issue  at  stake. 

Thus  at  the  polls  we  constantly  find 
good  men,  believers  in  the  home,  friends 
of  chastity  and  sobriety,  lending  them- 
selves to  the  fell  task  of  lifting  lecherous 
men  into  high  offices,  trusting  the  lives  of 
innocent  lambs  to  the  keeping  of  lascivious 

[73] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


and  debauching  wolves  who  have  not  even 
the  decency  to  hide  their  hideousness  with 
a cloak  of  sheepskin. 

3.  The  wasteful  distractions  of  the 
ethical  and  religious  forces  by  the  secta- 
rian spirit  have  greatly  weakened  the  cor- 
porate life  of  the  community,  divided  the 
high  interests  of  the  municipality.  The 
commonwealth  suffers  pitiably  from  the 
distractions  and  dissipations  of  the  sects, 
the  lack  of  harmony  and  co-operation 
among  the  churches.  I do  not  charge  the 
churches  with  aggressive  bigotry  and  low 
rivalries.  Happily  the  day  of  sectarian 
bitternesses  is  largely  gone  or  going.  In 
the  main,  deacons  and  pastors  have  quit 
fighting  one  another,  but  they  have  not 
yet  learned  how  to  work  together  heroic- 
ally for  great  civic  causes.  Their  preoccu- 
pations in  the  interest  of  denominational 
propaganda  crowd  out  the  high  combina- 
tions that  would  inspire  them  with  cour- 
age to  save  the  state  and  serve  the  nation. 
There  are  temperate,  sane  and  saintly  peo- 
ple enough  to  make  even  the  greatest 

[74] 


Two  Neighbors 


metropolis  go  “Dry”  in  some  wise  fashion 
in  the  next  five  years,  if  they  will  only 
have  faith  enough  in  themselves  and  their 
neighbors  to  trust  the  inspirations  of 
purity,  to  work  together  and  live  together 
for  the  redemption  of  the  community. 

But  I have  gone  far  afield  from  the  two 
graves  on  the  beautiful  heights  above  the 
river  in  a far-olf  country-side.  I have  ven- 
tured my  tribute  of  love  and  respect  to  my 
two  unfortunate  neighbors,  hoping  that  it 
might  prepare  the  minds  and  quicken  the 
hearts  of  a few  for  more  heroic  grappling 
with  the  questions  that  are  concerned  with 
the  well-being  of  those  still  living.  In 
comparatively  prosperous  times,  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  great  Mississippi  valley, 
when  its  granaries  were  overcrowded,  the 
products  of  the  field  and  garden  begging 
for  purchasers,  at  a time  when  market 
prices  were  low  from  overproduction, 
when  the  manufacturers  and  bankers  were 
gleefully  predicting  a prompt  return  of 
prosperity  and  boastfully  exhibiting  the 
figures  of  increasing  deposits  and  expand- 

[75] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


ing  exchanges,  a calm  and  critical  commis- 
sion reported  five  thousand  hungry  and 
ten  thousand  underfed  children  attending 
the  public  schools  of  Chicago.  And  the 
major  causes  of  this  suffering  were  trace- 
able to  the  seductions  of  the  nasty,  un- 
wholesome, unsocial  saloon. 

What  is  to  be  done  under  such  circum- 
stances? There  is  great  danger  that  the 
weakest,  wickedest  thing  possible  will  be 
done  because  it  is  the  easiest  thing  to  do, 
viz,  that  the  lazy,  overfed,  underworked, 
indulgent  children  of  prosperity,  pricked 
into  temporary  shame,  will  be  allowed  to 
pour  out  their  soup-house  charities  in  cer- 
tain congested  and  hungry  districts. 
Could  the  sufferers  be  thus  reached  it 
would  be  mediaeval  benevolence,  blight- 
ing both  receiver  and  giver,  bargaining  for 
greater  wretchedness  than  ever.  Give  five 
thousand  children  their  breakfasts  for  a 
month,  either  from  private  or  public  char- 
ity, and  there  will  be  eight  thousand  clam- 
oring for  the  breakfasts  next  month,  and 
many  of  the  breakfasted  children  will  be 

[T6] 


Two  Neighbors 


asking  for  a dinner  also;  and  before  a 
winter  season  is  over  long  lines  of  fathers 
and  mothers,  as  well  as  children,  will  be 
waiting  for  the  gruesome  bread-wagon  to 
appear. 

Chicago,  in  this  emergency  just  spoken 
of,  did  the  wiser  thing.  No  bread  was 
given  to  a hungry  child  until  its  case  had 
been  investigated  by  a competent  repre- 
sentative of  the  commonwealth,  and  when 
by  such  investigation  the  cause  was  dis- 
covered it  was  largely  remedied.  It  was 
easily  demonstrated  that  a painful  number 
of  these  children  were  hungry  because 
their  bread-money  had  been  converted  into 
beer-money.  The  brewers  and  distillers  of 
Chicago  had  deposited  in  the  banks  the 
money  that  should  have  nourished  the 
pale,  pathetic  school  children. 

But  another  percentage  of  these  chil- 
dren were  traced  into  homes  where  there 
was  no  money  either  for  beer  or  bread,  for 
the  earning  capacity  of  one  or  both  par- 
ents was  gone.  They  were  the  children 
of  the  “Bobs”  and  the  “Billys”  of  Chi- 

[77] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


cago;  those  who  had  been  debauched  by 
the  mug  and  the  pipe,  twin  poisons  that 
debilitate  the  nerves,  weaken  the  wills, 
and  make  men  old  before  their  time. 

There  was  still  another  percentage  of 
these  ten  thousand  underfed  children  who 
were  discovered  to  be  the  victims  of  eco- 
nomic injustice;  children  of  hard-working 
men  and  women  who  were  under-paid, 
honest  factors  in  the  industrial  life  of  Chi- 
cago, or  who  had  been  thrown  out  of  their 
jobs  by  the  emergencies  of  vicious  finan- 
ciering and  plunging  capitalists.  These 
capitalists  had  perhaps  saved  their  bank 
deposits  by  shutting  down  the  mill  or 
reducing  the  wages,  regardless  of  the 
moral  claim  of  their  unrecognized  partners 
in  the  business,  those  who  had  built 
homes,  reared  children,  invested  their 
lives;  skilled  laborers,  indispensable  fac- 
tors in  the  business  in  whose  control  they 
had  no  voice,  and  who  in  dire  crises  must 
look  elsewhere  for  relief. 

Now,  by  whatever  means  this  hunger 
has  come  about,  whether  by  misuse  of 

[78] 


Two  Neighbors 


wages,  incapacity  to  work  from  debauch- 
ery, or  a lack  of  opportunity  to  exchange 
honest  sweat  for  honest  bread,  there  is  but 
one  course  of  action  worthy  a civilized 
community,  and  that  is  to  trace  the  hunger 
to  its  fell  source  and  bring  to  bear  the 
cleansing,  renovating  stream  of  civic 
power  as  well  as  private  benevolence,  the 
redeeming  enthusiasms  of  religion.  Here 
the  highest  liberty  which  can  be  accorded 
is  the  liberty  to  deny  one’s  self  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  well-being  of  the  weakest. 

Let  the  story  of  “Bob”  and  “Billy”  give 
us  courage.  Let  no  one  be  paralyzed  by 
the  magnitude  of  the  job.  Do  not  tell  me 
it  is  too  big  an  undertaking  to  save  such 
good  men;  that  there  is  not  time,  money 
or  skill  enough  for  such  thorough  and 
radical  work,  and  that  consequently  there 
is  nothing  left  but  to  do  a little  emergency 
work  and  order  out  the  sandwich  wagon. 

This  task  would  be  too  great  for  a city 
of  barbarians,  or  a nation  of  unorganized, 
segregated,  disintegrated,  detached  indi- 
viduals, distrustful  of  one  another,  unac-^ 

[ 79  ] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


customed  to  co-operative  action,  dull  to 
public  interest,  jealous  of  their  individual 
rights,  careless  of  common  weal,  but  it  is 
an  easy  task  to  a civilized  community,  to 
an  organized  brotherhood,  to  Citizens  who 
are  through  with  the  Cain-like  evasions  of 
responsibility,  who  have  learned  that  they 
are  their  “brothers’  keepers,”  who  are  will- 
ing to  take  up  the  task  of  brotherly  serv- 
ice, to  bend  the  line  of  their  individual 
rights  into  the  circle  of  their  common  re- 
sponsibility. 

Such  Citizens  will  not  always  hear  the 
taunt  that  comes  up  from  the  ground; 
they  will  become  voters  from  whose  brows 
has  been  removed  the  mark  of  Cain. 


C80] 


The 

Flanking 
Columns 
In  the  War 
for  Sobriety 


Q 


/ 


The  Flanking  Columns 


ON  AN  early  morning  in  November, 
1863,  General  Braxton  Bragg,  Com- 
mander of  the  Confederate  forces, 
and  the  lady  at  whose  house  he  had  estab 
lished  his  headquarters,  were  looking  down 
from  the  crest  of  Missionary  Ridge  upon 
the  beleaguered  city  of  Chattanooga,  where 
the  half-starved  Union  army  under  Gen- 
eral Thomas  was  apparently  hopelessly 
besieged.  Their  nearest  post  of  supplies 
was  thirty  miles  away;  the  banks  of  the 
Tennessee  river  between  Chattanooga 
and  Bridgeport  were  so  infested  by  gueril- 
las and  scouts  of  the  enemy  that  it  was 
unavailable  for  transportation  purposes, 
and  the  road  of  bottomless  mud  was  cor- 
duroyed with  the  dead  bodies  of  the 
patient  mules  that  had  fallen  in  their 
tracks,  unable  to  go  further.  The  luckless 

[83] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


army  was  enclosed  by  a bristling  horse- 
shoe of  batteries,  reaching  from  Lookout 
Mountain  on  the  river  to  the  west,  to  the 
end  of  Missionary  Ridge  at  the  mouth  of 
Chickamauga  Creek  on  the  east. 

The  Confederate  army  was  in  comfort- 
able winter  quarters  on  the  well  fortified 
heights,  with  ample  stores  in  the  immedi- 
ate rear,  unmenaced  railroad  connections 
into  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy  and  un- 
broken telegraphic  connection  with  the 
capital  city  of  Richmond.  Said  the  lady: 

“General,  what  would  you  want  me  to 
do  if  some  day  we  were  to  see  those  Union 
soldiers  down  there  climbing  this  Ridge 
to  the  crest  and  putting  your  army  to 
flight?” 

“Take  no  alarm,  madam,”  replied  the 
confident  general,  jauntily.  “There  is  no 
danger;  we  have  got  the  Yanks  bottled; 
they  are  starving  down  there  now. 
Thomas’  army  is  discouraged;  mine  is 
well  fed,  comfortable,  enthusiastic.  We 
have  got  them.  General  Sherman’s  army 

[84] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


that  marched  across  the  state  of  Tennes- 
see from  Memphis  to  the  relief  of  Thomas, 
whose  camp  fires  made  the  Wahatchie 
valley  west  of  Lookout  Mountain  brilliant 
a few  nights  ago,  has  given  it  up.  He  is 
too  good  a general  to  add  his  army  to  the 
starving  forces  of  Thomas.  He  has 
crossed  the  Tennessee  River  and  is  now  on 
his  way  to  the  relief  of  Knoxville.  Do  not 
disturb  yourself  in  imagining  the  impos- 
sible.” 

In  some  such  words  as  these  it  is  re- 
ported did  the  gallant  and  dauntless 
Bragg  comfort  his  hostess;  and,  in  jus- 
tice to  the  brave  commander,  let  it  be 
said  that  these  words  were  no  idle  boast ; 
circumstances  seemed  to  justify  his  con- 
fidence; for  Chattanooga  at  this  crisis  was 
one  of  the  few  points  where  the  Confed- 
erate forces  had  clearly  the  advantage  in 
numbers,  military  supplies  and  strategic 
position.  It  was  one  of  the  few  times 
when  the  Union  army  was  successfully 
besieged.  If  ever  a general  was  justified 
in  assuming  his  position  invulnerable, 

[85] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


General  Bragg  was  so  justified  at  Chatta- 
nooga. His  army  had  already  measured 
forces  with  the  enemy;  he  had  outwitted 
and  outfought  him;  he  had  him  where  he 
wanted  him  and  had  good  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  he  could  starve  him  or  crush 
him,  as  he  chose. 

But  how  little  can  the  wisest  know  of 
the  nature  and  character  of  his  foes ! How 
fallible  is  the  keenest  sagacity,  how  in- 
adequate the  most  prudent  foresight,  for — 

‘The  best  laid  plans  o'  mice  and  men 
Gang  aft  agley." 

At  that  very  moment,  when  the  words 
of  the  General  were  so  reassuring  to  the 
widow.  Hooker  was  marshaling  his  charg- 
ing column  at  the  foot  of  Lookout  Moun- 
tain, and  Sherman’s  forces,  which  General 
Bragg  thought  moving  rapidly  toward 
Knoxville,  a hundred  or  more  miles  away, 
to  meet  which  he  had  detached  some  of 
his  best  fighting  men  under  Longstreet 
some  days  before,  were  in  fact  hidden 
away  just  north  of  Waldron  Ridge,  within 

earshot  of  Bragg’s  picket  posts  and  within 
[86] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


sight  of  the  bivouac  fires  that  gleamed  on 
Missionary  Ridge. 

What  transpired  is  now  world-famous 
history.  Very  soon,  Hooker’s  well-fed, 
well  - clothed,  well  - directed  re-enforce- 
ments  were  fighting  among  the  clouds, 
above  which  at  last  the  stars  and  stripes 
were  seen  floating,  soon  to  be  planted  on 
the  boldest  crest  of  Lookout  Mountain. 
The  “impregnable”  had  been  taken.  Mean- 
while, in  the  still  midnight  hours,  Sher- 
man was  throwing  his  pontoon  bridge 
across  the  river  to  Bragg’s  right,  and  the 
rebel  pickets,  sleeping  in  a sense  of  perfect 
security,  awoke  to  find  themselves  pris- 
oners before  they  had  fired  a shot,  and 
Bragg  discovered  the  startling  fact  that 
Sherman’s  forces,  toughened  by  the  mili- 
tary campaigns  in  Mississippi  and  disci- 
plined by  the  siege  of  Vicksburg,  had 
flanked  his  army  on  the  right  as  Hooker 
had  flanked  it  on  the  left. 

Meanwhile  the  beleaguered  Thomas 
had  not  moved.  His  starving  army  was 
watching  in  breathless  anxiety;  the 

[87] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


psychological  moment  had  not  yet  arrived; 
but  when  it  did,  the  hungry  men  arose, 
and  that  historic  charge,  unordered  and 
unled  by  officers,  transpired.  With  unex- 
pected prowess  the  men  climbed  the  bris- 
tling front  of  Missionary  Ridge  and,  per- 
haps as  much  to  the  surprise  of  their  own 
generals  as  that  of  the  opposing  leaders, 
found  themselves  in  possession  of  the 
enemy’s  rifle  pits.  The  courage  displayed 
in  this  charge  of  Thomas’  army  was 
psychological,  not  physical,  for  the  files 
of  Bragg  had  already  been  thinned  into  a 
skirmish  line  in  order  to  meet  the  unex- 
pected flanking  columns  of  Sherman  and 
Hooker. 

Happily,  the  clash  of  arms  is  heard  no 
more  among  the  mountains  of  Tennessee. 
These  United  States  no  longer  agonize 
over  a cruel  fratricidal  war.  Thank 
heaven,  the  scouting,  raiding,  charging 
and  flanking,  on  the  low  levels  of  physical 
force,  are  over ! God  grant  that  they  may 
be  forever  over.  Lookout  Mountain  and 

Missionary  Ridge  now  constitute  a na- 
[88] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


tion’s  playground,  a beautiful  sanitarium 
for  invalids.  Little  children  play  among 
the  crumbling  embrasures  and  birds  build 
their  nests  and  rear  their  young  in  the 
mouths  of  the  neglected  cannon.  The 
stars  and  stripes  are  saluted  lovingly  and 
loyally  by  the  children  of  the  South  and 
the  North.  The  rusty  remnants  of  the 
regiments  of  Bragg  and  “Pap”  Thomas 
meet  in  genial  reunion  on  what  were  once 
the  rampired  heights.  Shoulder  to 
shoulder  the  wearers  of  the  gray  and  of 
the  blue  keep  time  to  the  one  band  which 
now  plays  “Glory,  glory,  hallelujah!”  and 
anon  plays  “Dixie.” 

And  still,  this  is  no  time  to  cry  “Peace, 
peace — for  there  is  no  peace!”  The  citi- 
zens of  these  United  States  are  again  en- 
gaged in  a mighty  war.  Larger,  more 
determined,  more  valorous  armies  are 
being  marshaled  today  than  those  that 
wore  the  blue  and  the  gray  from  ’61  to  ’65. 
More  lives  are  being  sacrificed,  more 
homes  devastated,  more  property  de- 
stroyed, more  fortunes  wrecked,  more 

[89] 


O n kT  h e Firing  Line 


individual  careers  ruined,  and  the  issues 
are  more  profound  in  this  v^ar  for  sobriety 
than  were  ever  involved  in  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion.  The  figures  of  inebriety  that 
represent  the  wastefulness  of  the  saloon, 
the  weakness  and  wickedness  of  drunk- 
ards, the  wretchedness  of  their  homes,  the 
misery  of  their  children,  the  humiliation 
of  their  wives,  are  simply  beyond  com- 
parison with  the  gruesome  figures  of  the 
most  gigantic  and  wicked  of  wars. 

This  battle-ground  is  not  sectional;  the 
weapons  are  not  bullets  and  bayonets,  but 
arguments  and  ballots.  None  the  less,  it 
is  war,  war  to  the  hilt.  An  unrelenting, 
unyielding,  irreconcilable  battle  is  on  be- 
tween the  forces  of  temperance  and  intem- 
perance, the  army  of  the  sane  and  the 
sober  fighting  against  the  army  of  the  dis- 
solute and  those  who  would  profit  from 
dissipation  by  bartering  in  the  stuff  that 
dissipates.  More  and  more  clearly  is  the 
issue  drawn;  more  and  more  inevitable  is 
the  battle. 

Today  the  commanders  of  the  drink 

[90] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


army,  like  Bragg  on  Missionary  Ridge, 
may  look  down  complacently,  perhaps 
contemptuously,  upon  what  they  deem  the 
dirty  starvelings  in  the  grim  army  of  re- 
formers. They  may  look  with  confidence 
upon  that  invulnerable  line  of  saloon-keep- 
ers, seven  thousand  or  more  in  Chicago 
alone,  backed  by  the  well-fed  hosts  who 
are  engaged  in  the  liquor  industries  in  one 
way  or  another.  The  complacency  of 
these  whiskey  Braggs,  the  Generals  in  the 
army,  may  seem  altogether  justifiable  in 
view  of  the  exhaustless  resources  back  of 
them,  the  abundant  capital,  the  mountain- 
ous aggregations  of  the  brewing  and  dis- 
tilling interests  of  the  United  States,  the 
expert  legal  skill,  the  subtleties  of  poli- 
ticians who  have  for  so  long  maintained 
efficient  back-door  connections  with  the 
saloons  of  the  country.  , According  to  the 
official  figures  for  the  fiscal  year  ending 
June  30,  1909,  the  drink  bill  of  the  United 
States  amounted  to  $1,745,300,385,  almost 
twice  as  much  as  the  United  States  debt. 
During  the  same  time  the  government 

[91] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


returns  showed  that  133,450,755  gallons 
of  distilled  liquors  were  produced  in  the 
United  States,  and  56,303,497  barrels  of 
beer.  In  view  of  the  mighty  combinations 
of  capital,  the  humble  and  faithful  armies 
of  private  laborers  who  are  shedding  hon- 
est sweat  in  the  business,  and  the  appetites 
pandered  and  developed,  to  satisfy  which 
required  in  1907  twenty-three  gallons  of 
stimulants  of  one  kind  or  another  per 
capita,  well  may  the  General  Bragg  of 
these  inebriating  armies  look  down  with 
complacent  derision  on  the  beleaguered 
hosts  in  front,  made  up  of  poorly  fed  and 
inadequately  disciplined  regiments  of 
reformers  and  agitators,  impecunious 
preachers,  impractical  idealists,  well- 
meaning  rhapsodists  and  disfranchised 
women,  whom  they  suspect  of  forgetting 
that  this  is  earth  and  not  heaven,  and  that 
consequently  one  must  needs  deal  with 
men,  fallible  men,  and  not  with  angels. 

The  attacking  army  in  front  seems  to 
be  an  inadequate  one;  it  appears  to  be 
fighting  in  a losing  battle,  a well-nigh 

192] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


hopeless  one.  Surely  the  past  and,  appar- 
ently, the  plain,  prosaic  business  present, 
seem  to  be  against  them.  But  lo!  un- 
looked for  flanking  forces  are  swinging 
into  line.  The  Hooker  of  science  is  climb- 
ing Lookout  Mountain;  his  men  are  now 
fighting  above  the  clouds,  but  their  feet 
are  on  solid  ground;  they  are  going  to 
hold  the  rugged  heights  they  have 
achieved.  The  laws  of  hygiene,  sanitary 
science,  the  white-robed  nurses  in  the 
hospital,  the  testimony  of  clear-eyed 
physicians  are  flanking  the  saloon-keep- 
ing army.  More  and  more  clear,  nearer 
and  nearer  to  unanimity,  is  the  testimony 
of  the  flanking  army  of  science  that  alco- 
hol is  an  intruder  in  the  physical  organ- 
ism; that  whiskey  is  a poison,  and  that 
whatever  of  value  or  nutriment  there  may 
be  in  beer,  that  infinitesimal  quantity 
lurks  there  in  spite  of,  not  on  account  of, 
the  two  per  cent  or  more  of  alcohol,  for 
the  sake  of  which  most  men  drink  the 
dirty  stuff.  According  to  the  over- 
whelming consensus  of  the  competent  in 
[93] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


science,  the  economy  of  alcohol  in  the 
healthy  body  is,  to  say  the  least,  extremely 
doubtful,  and  its  function  in  the  diseased 
body  is  a delicate,  subtle  problem  which 
only  such  experts  as  are  competent  to 
pronounce  on  medicines  and  the  medicinal 
values  of  poisons  can  decide. 

The  saloon-keeping  and  saloon-patfon- 
izing  army  is  loath  to  take  issue  with  the 
physician.  They  have  been  content  thus 
far  to  ignore  him;  they  either  underesti- 
mate or  wholly  ignore  the  existence  of 
this  flanking  army.  They  know  that  no 
physician  who  cares  a straw  for  his  repu- 
tation will  undertake  to  justify  the  bibu- 
lous habits  which  alone  make  the  saloon 
business  profitable.  The  man  who  wants 
his  one  glass  of  beer  with  his  dinner,  or 
who  is  contented  with  a five-cent  lunch- 
eon, has  little  or  nothing  in  common  with 
the  man  who  joins  with  his  three  or  more 
pals  in  the  hospitalities  of  the  saloon, 
which  require  that  before  their  luncheon 
is  over  four  glasses  be  poured  into  the 
stomach,  making  the  luncheon  cost  not 

[MJ 


The  Flanking  Columns 


five,  but  twenty  cents.  The  saloon  has 
no  more  effective  enemy  than  the  solitary 
one-glass-of-beer  luncher.  The  proprietor 
loses  money  on  him,  and  were  all  of 
his  patrons  to  come  within  hailing  dis- 
tance of  the  scientific  minimum,  it  would 
soon  break  up  the  saloon  business,  which 
cannot  live  on  the  physician’s  prescription. 
Science,  even  of  the  most  conservative 
and  reactionary  kind,  is  flanking  the 
drinking  forces  of  the  United  States,  and 
with  its  aid  the  temperance  forces  that 
are  now  fighting  above  the  clouds  are 
destined  to  rout  the  enemy. 

Dr.  George  W.  Webster,  President  of 
the  Illinois  State  Board  of  Health,  is  a 
man  to  compel  a hearing,  and  when,  in 
a public  address  recently  given  before  the 
critical  audience  which  makes  up  the 
Chicago  Medical  Society,  he  said  that 
the  death  rate  from  alcohol  is  greater 
than  that  from  tuberculosis,  which  aggre- 
gates 140,000  a year;  when  he  said  that 
ten  per  cent  of  all  the  deaths  in  the  United 
States  are  caused,  directly  or  indirectly, 

[96] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


by  the  use  of  alcoholic  stimulants;  that 
twenty  per  cent  of  our  insane  owe  their 
condition  to  its  use;  that  it  costs  the 
United  States  twelve  billions  a year  to 
maintain  its  asylums  and  its  institutions 
peopled  largely  by  the  victims  of  alcohol; 
when  he  said  that  the  death  rate  of  alco- 
holics from  pneumonia  is  fifty  per  cent; 
and,  further,  when  he  testified  that  both 
mental  and  physical  work  can  be  done 
more  efficiently,  with  fewer  mistakes  and 
less  danger  to  the  individual,  without  alco- 
hol; that  in  infectious  diseases  the  ab- 
stainer has  a better  chance  for  recovery; 
that  alcohol  always  destroys  the  resisting 
power  of  the  body  and  lowers  the  vitality, 
he  compelled  the  profession  and  the  laity 
alike  to  take  notice. 

And  Doctor  Webster  is  only  one  of 
thousands.  The  same  testimony  comes 
from  over  the  sea;  academic  Germany  has 
served  notice  on  the  Kaiser  that  the 
bibulous  habit  which  has  menaced  his 
health  and  power  is  undermining  the 
virility  of  the  German  army,  and  heroic 

[96] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


steps  are  being  taken  to  put  even  the 
fighting  Germans  on  a temperance  basis. 

Now,  lo  and  behold!  the  somber,  grim 
William  Tecumseh  Sherman,  head  of  the 
economic  forces,  field  marshal  of  the 
business  men,  has  crossed  the  Tennessee 
and  is  moving  his  solid  but  quiet  indus- 
trial columns  up  the  Chickamauga  valley. 
He  is  surprising  General  Bragg;  he  leads 
another  flanking  column  on  the  enemy’s 
right.  The  great  captains  of  industry 
are  learning  more  and  more  the  waste- 
fulness of  the  drink  habit,  the  deteriorat- 
ing influence  of  the  saloon  upon  their 
employes.  They  can  estimate  in  dollars 
and  cents  the  wretchedness  that  might 
be  avoided,  aye,  that  is  being  avoided 
largely  when  communities  go  “Dry.” 
The  business  wisdom  of  this  economic 
army  is  demoralizing  the  whole  line; 
it  is  sweeping  the  country  in  the  rear 
of  the  enemy.  First  it  took  possession  of 
the  rural  regions,  then  of  the  villages,  and 
now  city  after  city  is  surrendering,  not 

C97J 


On  The  Firing  Line 


through  the  action  of  the  army  in  front 
but  through  the  irresistible  movements  of 
this  flanking  army  of  common  sense, 
financial  thrift  and  business  wisdom.  The 
political  boss,  with  his  “What  will  you 
have?”  is  losing  his  power  in  the  presence 
of  the  business  boss,  who  says  to  the  voter 
as  to  the  toiler,  “Don’t  make  a fool  of 
yourself !” 

Nine  States  of  the  Union  have  already 
become  prohibition  States,  four  of  them 
made  such  by  constitutional  amendment. 
They  represent  a population  of  fifteen 
million  or  more  people.  Thirty-three 
States  of  the  Union  have  local  option  pro- 
vision; sixteen  of  these  have  county  units. 
Already  it  is  estimated  that  about  two- 
thirds  of  the  area  of  the  United  States  is 
“Dry”  territory,  in  which  the  saloon  busi- 
ness, as  a business,  is  illicit.  This  is 
chiefly  the  result  of  a flanking  army  whose 
movements  are  as  irresistible,  as  rapid, 
and  fraught  with  as  much  danger  as  were 
the  movements  of  Sherman’s  columns  up 
Tunnel  Hill. 


(98] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


In  1909  there  was  a decrease  in  the 
production  of  beer  of  2,444,183  barrels  in 
the  United  States.  The  per  capita  con- 
sumption of  spirits  of  all  kinds  reached  its 
maximum  in  the  United  States  in  1907, 
twenty-three  gallons  as  already  stated; 
1909  saw  a reduction  of  two  gallons  per 
head  throughout  the  United  States.  This 
decrease  is  obviously  largely  the  result  of 
the  flanking  army  of  economists,  and  this 
General  Bragg’s  army  is  most  amenable 
to  the  dollars-and-cents  argument.  It  is 
economic  sense  building  on  the  economic 
necessity  that  is  winning  the  undemon- 
strative, silent  voter;  this  is  doing  the 
business.  The  political  boss,  whose  de- 
pendence is  upon  the  “bhoys”  rather  than 
upon  the  men  in  this  war,  and  the  un- 
scrupulous speculators  in  the  weakness  of 
men  and  the  virtue  of  women,  are  losing 
their  power  in  the  presence  of  the  awak- 
ened and  enlightened  taxpayer.  It  does 
not  follow  that  all  this  flanking  army  of 
voters  are  teetotalers,  either  in  theory  or 
in  practice;  they  certainly  are  not  all 

[09] 


On  The  Firing  L i n ^ 


political  prohibitionists;  they  may  have 
arrived  at  no  conclusive  creed  concerning 
the  drink  question ; they  do  not  know  what 
the  final  social  adjustment  is  to  be.  The 
vast  majority  see  with  perfect  clearness 
that  there  must  be  more  and  not  less  pro- 
vision made  for  the  social  amenities,  for 
the  pastimes,  the  reunions  of  men  and 
women.  All  workingmen,  whether  they 
work  with  the  pick,  the  file,  the  pen,  or  the 
tireless  activity  of  the  brain,  are  simply 
tired  of  seeing  the  substance  of  the  com- 
munity wasted,  disgusted  with  the  cost  of 
policemen  and  courts  that  are  kept  busy 
handling  vulgar  drunks  and  are  made  in- 
efficient by  the  subtle  demoralizations  of 
their  seducers.  The  most  effective  tem- 
perance organizations  in  America  today 
are  the  great  industrial  plants,  and  their 
leaders  are  the  captains  of  industry.  Their 
conclusions  are  based  upon  the  unerring 
and  consequently  overwhelming  testi- 
mony of  the  ledger.  It  is  another  case 
where  “figures  will  not  lie.”  They  have 

discovered  the  persistent  foe  to  pros- 
[100] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


perity,  the  insidious  enemy  of  efficient 
labor,  the  sources  of  danger  in  places  of 
trust  and  responsibility.  In  this  great 
flanking  army  of  business  perhaps  the 
mighty  railway  systems  of  America  are 
the  most  effective  corps.  Rule  ‘‘Eight,” 
published  for  the  government  and  infor- 
mation of  employes,  on  the  working  card 
of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee  & St.  Paul 
Railway  System,  in  force  on  all  the  divi- 
sions of  that  road,  runs  as  follows: 

The  use  of  intoxicating  drinks  has  proven  a most 
fruitful  source  of  trouble  to  railways  as  well  as  to 
individuals.  The  company  will  exercise  the  most  rigid 
scrutiny  in  reference  to  the  habits  of  employes  in  this 
respect,  and  any  employe  who  has  been  dismissed  on 
this  account  will  not  be  re-employed.  Drinking  when 
on  duty  or  frequenting  saloons  will  not  be  tolerated, 
and  preference  will  be  given  to  those  who  do  not  drink 
at  all. 

This  represents  in  substance  the  regula- 
tions enforced  by  all  the  leading  railway 
systems  of  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
Thirty-two  railroad  companies  furnished 
such  information  to  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  Year  Book  for  1909,  the  reports 

on  which  may  be  consulted  on  pages  143- 
[ 101  ] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


147  of  said  book.  Similar  information 
has  been  courteously  given  me  by  many 
of  the  officials  representing  the  leading 
trunk  lines  centering  in  Chicago.  The 
Burlington  System,  in  their  general  rules, 
prohibit  the  use  of  intoxicants  while  on 
duty,  and  further  state  that  the  habitual 
use  or  the  frequenting  of  places  where  in- 
toxicants are  sold  is  sufficient  cause  for 
dismissal. 

The  General  Manager  of  another  great 
system  centering  in  Chicago  writes  me: 

While  we  have  no  printed  matter  on  the  subject,  these 
unwritten  rules  are  thoroughly  understood.  The  drink- 
ing of  liquor  is  not  tolerated  among  employes,  particu- 
larly those  in  train  and  engine  service;  and  frequenters 
of  saloons  are  arbitrarily  dismissed  whether  ever  seen 
in  an  intoxicated  condition  or  not. 

The  following  from  a general  notice 
issued  by  the  Third  Vice-President  of  the 
Baltimore  & Ohio  Railway  System,  Jan- 
uary 1st,  1908,  is  taken  from  the  Year 
Book  alluded  to  above: 

Officers  and  employes  will  take  notice  that  there  will 
not  be  employed,  nor  permitted  to  remain  in  the  service, 
in  the  capacity  of  trainmaster,  dispatcher,  operator,  en- 
gineer, fireman  or  trainman,  yardman,  block  or  other 
[102] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


signalman,  watchman,  or  in  other  positions  in  any  way 
charged  with  the  direction  or  operation  of  trains,  per- 
sons who  use  intoxicants,  either  while  on  duty  or  off 
duty.  Under  no  circumstances  will  exceptions  be  made. 

The  Pere  Marquette  Railroad  Com- 
pany, in  Rule  Twenty-three,  provides  that 
employes  in  any  capacity  who  frequent 
places  where  liquor  is  sold  will  not  be 
retained  in  the  service. 

The  laws  of  Michigan  provide  that 

No  person  shall  be  employed  as  engineer,  train  dis- 
patcher, fireman,  baggage  master,  conductor,  brakeman, 
or  other  servant,  upon  any  railroad  in  any  of  its  oper- 
ating departments,  who  uses  intoxicating  drinks  as  a 
beverage. 

A gigantic^  temperance  movement  has 
been  organized  among  the  employes  of  the 
Northwestern  Railway  System  by  their 
own  initiative.  When  it  was  known  that 
it  was  the  settled  policy  of  the  road  to 
retain  the  non-drinking  men  in  dull  sea- 
sons, a pledge  signed  by  over  25,000 
employes,  which  had  been  circulated 
throughout  the  7,000  miles  of  their  sys- 
tem, was  forwarded  to  the  President  of 
the  road. 


[103] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


But  the  railroad  companies  are  not 
alone  in  discovering  the  economic  value 
of  sobriety  and  the  business  necessity  of 
enforcing  temperance  habits.  The  follow- 
ing carefully  prepared  statement,  which 
shows  what  one  business  firm  can  do  and 
has  done  in  Chicago  in  the  way  of  flanking 
the  drinking  army,  was  furnished  me  by 
one  high  in  the  employ  of  a great  mail 
order  firm  of  this  city: 

Several  tracts  adjacent  to  the  forty-acre  lot  pur- 
chased by  us  in  1904  for  our  new  plant  are  prohibition 
by  local  option.  As  soon  as  we  began  building 
operations,  saloons  grew  up  around  us  like  mushrooms. 
We  had  to  do  something  to  protect  our  female  help 
and  prevent  bad  conditions  generally,  so  we  passed 
the  eight-block  rule,  which  makes  it  a ‘^capital  offense” 
for  any  employe  to  enter  a saloon  at  any  time  (in  busi- 
ness hours  or  out  of  them)  within  eight  blocks  of  our 
plant. 

Regarding  the  effect  on  real  estate:  I find  there  is  a 
widespread  objection  to  industrial  establishments  in 
residence  districts,  based  on  actual  experience  of  de- 
creasing real  estate  values.  A neighborhood  is  said 
to  be  ^'killed”  for  residence  purposes  as  soon  as  busi- 
ness enters  it.  This,  I find,  is  not  due  to  factory  noises, 
traffic,  smoke,  smell,  or  other  essential  symptoms  of 
industry;  but  to  a certain  amount  of  disorder  and  dis- 
turbance on  the  street  after  business  hours  in  factory 
districts.  Here  is  where  the  saloon  is  .directly  at  fault. 

[104] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


By  attracting  the  worker’s  attention  before  he  goes 
home,  the  saloon  gets  a much  larger  share  of  his  earn- 
ings than  it  possibly  could  under  other  conditions. 
Our  plant  has  not  injured  real  estate  values  in  the 
least;  neither  have  the  adjacent  plants  of  makers  of 
baking  powder,  machinery,  etc.  Residences  and  flats 
of  better  class  are  being  built  around  our  forty  acres 
in  a solid  wall.  Several  hundred  of  our  own  employes 
live  within  four  blocks  of  the  plant. 

Viewed  from  the  employers’  standpoint,  the  saloon 
is  an  absolutely  unmitigated  nuisance.  Assuming  that 
one  man  has  as  much  right  to  drink  beer  with  his 
dinner  as  another  has  to  drink  coffee,  the  fact  remains 
that  no  bar  or  saloon  could  make  a profit  on  drinks  so 
served.  The  real  profit  in  the  liquor  business  in  this 
country  comes  from  the  drinker,  and  a drinker  is  not 
one  who  takes  a glass  of  beer  with  a meal,  but  one 
who  drinks  generally  without  eating  and  always  to 
excess.  ^ 

The  saloon  can  never  prove  to  the  employer  of  labor 
that  it  is  anything  but  his  enemy.  Look  at  our  list  of  male 
absentees  on  a Monday  morning  and  you  see  the  work 
of  the  saloon.  Add  to  the  money  actually  spent  over 
the  bar  the  amount  lost  through  inability  to  work  the 
following  day,  or  the  reduction  in  capacity  in  case  of 
a piece  worker,  and  you  have  in  a nutshell  the  worker’s 
curse  and  the  employer’s  problem — both  the  product  of 
the  saloon. 

All  authorities  agree  that  the  American  saloon  is  the 
nastiest  public  institution  on  earth.  Foreigners  who 
were  harmless  drinkers  of  beer  in  Germany  or  of  light 
wines  in  France  or  Italy,  come  here  and  are  promptly 
converted  to  viciousness  by  the  foodless  drinking  and 
treating  habits  here  prevailing. 

If  the  ‘‘personal  liberty”  folks  are  sincere  in  their 
[105] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


ideas  of  saving  to  the  foreigneis  their  leisurely  Euro- 
pean glass,  let  them  organize  something  different  from 
the  American  saloon  as  a means  of  serving  the  drinks 
they  call  harmless. 

Business  and  the  saloon  have  come  to  a final  parting 
of  the  ways.  The  doors  of  progress  and  promotion 
are  closed  to  any  man  who  finds  his  associates  or 
recreation  in  the  barroom. 

Another  corps  in  the  flanking  in  this  bat- 
tle against  intoxicants  is  the  well  discip- 
plined,  clear-eyed,  aggressive  column  of 
the  unenfranchised  women  who  have  got 
tired  of  merely  weeping  and  only  praying, 
either  to  man  or  to  God.  They  have 
wearied  of  waiting  or  of  waging  a personal 
and  unorganized  guerrilla  warfare  against 
their  great  enemy;  they  are  drilling  their 
recruits ; they  are  hitching  their  prayers  to 
the  gun  carriages;  they  are  moving  the 
artillery  of  reason.  Today  they  are  voting 
by  proxy;  tomorrow  they  will  be  voting  in 
their  own  God-given  rights,  assuming  the 
full  stature  of  living  souls. 

When  this  flanking  army,  directed  by 
judgment,  inspired  by  conscience  and 
armed  with  the  ballot,  gets  fairly  into  line, 
it  is  bound  to  win. 


[106] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


There  is  another  unexpected  source  of 
re-enforcement.  The  entrenched  army  is 
itself  weakening.  Colonels  are  deserting 
their  colors  and  taking  to  the  other  side. 
The  self-respecting  elements  in  the  saloon 
army,  and  there  are  such,  are  beginning 
to  see  a great  light.  Saloon-keepers 
themselves  are  beginning  to  be  ashamed 
of  their  business.  They  are  not  willing 
that  their  wives  should  be  permanently 
humiliated  and  their  children  publicly  dis- 
graced. This  movement  among  saloon- 
keepers for  law-abiding  saloons  I believe 
to  be,  in  the  main,  sincere  and  of  immense 
significance,  but  as  American  society  is 
now  constituted,  with  the  growing  intelli- 
gence and  thrift  of  the  American  citizen, 
a “law-abiding  saloon,”  wherein  no  row- 
dyism, intoxication  or  law-breaking  is 
permitted,  is  a financial  fallacy.  It  means 
inevitable  bankruptcy  to  an  overwhelming 
percentage  of  the  present  retail  dealers  in 
intoxicants  throughout  our  land. 

The  result  of  a recent  careful  survey 
made  under  the  direction  of  James  K. 

[107] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


Shields,  State  Superintendent  of  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  of  Illinois,  disclosed  the 
fact  that  there  are  11,338  feet  of  saloon 
frontage  in  the  Loop  District  of  Chicago, 
a territory  bounded  on  the  north  by  the 
river,  on  the  east  by  the  lake,  on  the  south 
by  Harrison  street,  and  on  the  west  by  the 
river.  In  other  words,  over  two  miles  of 
saloons  intrude  upon  the  business  centers 
of  Chicago.  From  the  same  source  we 
learn  that  on  North  Clark  street,  from  the 
river  to  Lincoln  Park,  the  street  of  retail 
business  on  the  North  Side,  there  are  77 
saloons,  of  which  52  have  wine  rooms,  42 
are  connected  with  houses  of  ill  fame,  and 
nearly  all  of  them  have  “family  entrances” 
and  pianos. 

The  workers  of  the  Abraham  Lincoln 
Centre,  at  my  request,  made  a similar 
survey  of  the  adjoining  territory,  bounded 
on  the  north  by  Thirty-fifth  street,  on  the 
east  by  Ellis  avenue,  on  the  south  by  Thir- 
ty-ninth street,  on  the  west  by  Grand 
Boulevard.  They  found  there  were  49 

saloons,  14  of  them  corner  saloons,  nearly 
[108] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


all  of  them  having  “ladies’  entrances,” 
many  of  them  having  gambling  places  and 
bawdy  houses  in  connection  therewith. 
Here  are  1,196  feet,  nearly  one-quarter  of  ^ 
a mile,  of  saloons  in  a territory  that  con- 
tains but  one  schoolhouse  and  three 
churches.  In  the  same  territory  there  are 
but  19  groceries,  9 meat  markets,  13  res- 
taurants, 6 bakeries  and  8 drug  stores, 
making  but  55  stands  to  cater  to  the  neces- 
sities of  life  against  49  places  of  dissipa- 
tion. The  total  frontage  of  these  legiti- 
mate dispensaries  of  physical  needs  is 
about  1,405  feet,  or  only  209  feet  in  excess 
of  the  debauching  frontage.  Under  any 
attempt  to  bring  the  trade  of  beer  and 
whiskey  down  to  the  limits  of  legality, 
decency,  and  the  boasted  sanity  of  mod- 
erate drinkers,  it  is  obvious  that  much  of 
this  “business”  would  go  to  the  wall. 

When  the  flanking  armies  were  closing 
in  on  Bragg’s  forces  and  his  lines  broke 
on  Missionary  Ridge,  General  Thomas’ 
hungry  boys  were  surprised  to  find  that 
no  inconsiderable  number  of  their  sup- 

[109] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


posed  enemies  had  thrown  away  their 
guns  and  were  running,  not  away  from, 
but  toward  the  victorious  column.  They 
had  had  enough  of  rebellion.  Their  sober 
second  thought  had  been  at  work  and,  an- 
ticipating their  great  General,  the  hero  of 
Appomattox,  they  were  brave  enough  to 
change  their  minds;  to  see  the  next  right 
thing  to  do.  Acknowledging  his  defeat, 
General  Lee  turned  to  lead  the  boys  who 
had  followed  him  to  the  death  line,  up  the 
academic  heights  of  life.  Under  his  lead 
they  were  now  ready  to  guard  the  honor 
of  the  flag  which,  under  the  same  lead, 
they  once  riddled  with  bullets. 

So  will  it  be;  so  is  it  now,  with  the  en- 
trenched hosts  of  inebriety.  Already  the 
rank  and  file  are  beginning  to  suspect  that 
the  organized  brewers  and  distillers  of 
America  are  false  champions  of  liberty. 
Their  real  inspiration,  of  which  they  them- 
selves are  only  half  conscious,  is  the  hope 
of  a golden  harvest.  Business  men  are  in 
the  liquor  trade,  as  in  other  trades,  for  the 

money  there  is  in  it.  Gold  and  not  liberty, 
[ 110  ] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


greed  and  not  patriotism,  inspires  them, 
and  when  they  find  their  capital  menaced 
and  begin  to  realize  that  there  is  no  profit 
in  the  business,  the  manufacturers,  the 
brewers  and  distillers,  the  dealers, 
whether  wholesale  or  retail,  are  going  to 
throw  away  their  guns  and  join  the  vic- 
torious army. 

But  let  not  the  temperance  phalanxes 
be  lured  with  the  hope  that  the  war  is  over. 
The  victory  is  not  yet  won,  because  the 
vision  is  not  yet  clear. 

I was  a part  of  Sherman’s  flanking 
army;  I watched  the  stealthy,  silent,  mid- 
night construction  of  the  pontoon  bridge; 
our  battery  was  the  first  to  venture  upon 
the  floating  structure ; we  were  at  the  far- 
ther end  as  soon  as  the  last  planks  were 
laid,  and  our  guns  were  among  the  first 
to  be  drawn,  by  human  hands,  up  heights 
too  steep  and  through  thickets  too  dense 
for  the  horses  to  travel.  I was  in  the  des- 
perate battle;  I saw  the  battering  of  the 

column  and  the  mangled  lines,  and  heard 
(111] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


the  midnight  groans  of  the  uncared  for. 
I was  part  of  the  pursuing  column.  But 
two  weeks  after  Braxton  Bragg’s  head- 
quarters had  been  captured  we  had  to  turn 
our  horses  out  that  they  might  perchance 
save  their  lives  by  browsing  the  naked 
trees  in  midwinter;  and  one  morning  as 
the  sun  arose  upon  hungry  boys,  the  com- 
manding officer  said: 

Boys,  there  is  nothing  for  you  to  eat.  As  you  went 
to  bed  last  night  supperless,  you  must  start  out  this 
morning  breakfastless.  There  are  provisions  at  Bridge- 
port; thirty  miles  of  mud  between  you  and  your  dinner; 
get  there  any  way  you  can,  as  you  can.  There  will  be 
roll  call  of  those  who  survive  the  march  after  you  have 
had  something  to  eat  at  Bridgeport. 

Thus  will  it  be  in  this  war  for  sobriety, 
this  battle  for  soul-liberty,  this  triumph 
of  judgment  over  appetite.  O,  there  are 
many  hardships,  privations,  dangers,  mis- 
takes, temporary  defeats,  local  dismay 
and  panics  ahead  of  us ! 

But  it  is  a glorious  war.  Science,  re- 
ligion, education  and  patriotism,  the 
saints  and  the  sages,  our  mothers,  wives 

and  sisters,  are  in  the  ranks  with  us. 

[112] 


The  Flanking  Columns 


The  reserve  corps  is  moving  up ! 

The  flanking  columns  are  sv^inging  into 
line! 

The  bugle  sounds  the  “Assembly!” 
Friends  of  Purity,  Sobriety,  Liberty — 
Fall  in! 

Touch  elbows  I Right,  dress!  Forward, 
march ! 


Q 


[113] 


Appendix 


A Letter  to  the  Saloon-Keepers  of 
Chicago 


Friends  and  Fellow  Citizens: 

Such  we  certainly  are,  or  ought  to  be,  for  deep  below 
our  contentions  our  interests  are  one.  We  all  want  to 
conserve  the  home,  honor  our  city  and  serve  our  coun- 
try. We  have  a common  interest  in  our  wives  and  our 
children  and  a common  desire  to  provide  for  them  in 
honorable  ways  and  to  earn  for  ourselves  an  honest 
living. 

Let  me  hasten  to  assure  you  that  I am  interested  in 
an  anti-saloon  movement  and  not  in  an  anti-saloon 
keepers’  movement.  As  a friend,  then,  I beg  you  to 
consider  with  me  the  changing  times,  the  trend  of 
thought  shaped  by  the  growing  science  and  enlarging 
experiences  of  our  day.  Things  are  not  as  they  used 
to  be.  The  conditions  of  the  Old  World,  from  which 
many  of  us  came,  cannot  be  reproduced  here.  The 
American  saloon  is  not  identical  with  the  beer  gardens 
and  wine  rooms  of  Europe  and  cannot  be  made  so. 
Recent  action  taken  by  your  own  representatives  in 
many  cities  shows  that  you  recognize  many  things  con- 
nected with  your  business  tending  toward  the  disagree- 
able, the  illegal,  the  indecent  and  the  immoral,  and 
that  you  are  tr3dng  to  lift  the  business  into  respectabil- 
ity and  law-abiding  conditions.  No  one  can  know  as 
well  as  yourselves  that  your  customers  often  over 
drink  and  that  you  are  compelled  to  witness  boisterous 
[117] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


brawls  and  listen  to  coarse,  profane,  violent  speech. 
You  know  that  a great  deal  too  much  liquor  is  drunk 
by  your  own  customers.  You  know  how  your  business 
often  comes  in  competition  with  that  of  the  butcher, 
the  grocer  and  the  baker,  whose  business  it  is  to  supply 
the  essential  needs  of  the  family.  You  know,  better 
than  anybody  else,  that  much  money  passes  over 
your  counter  which  is  needed  by  the  families  of  your 
customers  for  shoes,  bread,  clothing  and  fuel.  You 
must  know  also  that  the  verdict  of  the  medical  profes- 
sion in  all  lines  is  clearly  in  the  direction  of  greater 
abstinence  from  malt  and  spirituous  liquors;  that  the 
overwhelming  testimony  of  physicians  is  that  alcohol 
is  a poison,  that  its  presence  in  the  body  acts  as  such, 
and  that,  except  under  conditions  which  they  alone  are 
competent  to  determine,  its  presence  in  the  body  is  a 
menace  to  health. 

I further  beg  of  you  to  note  that  the  growth  of  the 
‘‘Dry  Territory’’  in  all  parts  of  our  country  is  not  the 
result  of  the  efforts  of  fanatical  agitators,  of  extreme 
moralists  and  narrow  fanatics,  but  of  the  growing  sense 
and  prudence  of  business  men,  industrial  corporations, 
railroad  managements,  etc.,  etc.  It  is  the  economic 
argument  that  prevails.  Cities,  large  and  small,  are 
finding  that  business  is  not  injured  by  the  abolition  of  the 
saloon,  but  that  the  cost  of  the  police  courts,  jails,  and 
all  departments  that  seek  to  enforce  the  law  and  pro- 
tect property  is  greatly  reduced.  You  know  that 
already  the  liquor  business  is  in  a bad  way,  that  it  is 
harder  and  harder  to  make  a saloon  pay.  Your  repre- 
sentatives have  often  urged  that  under  the  existing 
conditions  of  city  regulations  and  state  law,  the  saloon- 
keeper finds  it  harder  and  harder  to  make  a living,  and 
it  requires  only  cool,  impartial  business  judgment  on 
your  part  to  see  that  these  restrictions  are  to  grow 
[ 118  ] 


A Letter  to  Saloon-Keepers 


more  exacting  and  not  less.  Whatever  may  be  the 
result  of  the  vote  at  the  next  election,  the  educational 
cam.paign  that  leads  up  to  it  will  make  the  lot  of  the 
saloon-keeper  immensely  harder;  it  will  be  more  and 
more  difficult  for  you  to  make  it  a business  that 
will  be  pronounced  legitimate  by  law  and  that  will 
be  considered  respectable  by  right-minded  people  in 
all  walks  of  life.  A business  from  which  your  own 
sense  of  fitness  as  well  as  the  city  ordinance  excludes 
respectable  women  and  innocent  children,  your  own 
included,  a business  so  directly  allied  with  the  degrada- 
tions of  the  brothel,  with  gambling  and  corruption,  with 
grafters  and  politicians,  is  a business  in  which  a self- 
respecting  man  who  wants  his  wife  and  children  to 
grow  up  without  shame,  cannot  choose  long  to  remain. 
With  the  temperance  agitators  trusting  more  and  more 
to  economical,  scientific  and  social  principles  against 
you  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  mighty  combination  of 
capital,  the  bloodless  trusts  represented  by  the  brewer 
and  distiller  on  the  other,  your  lot  is  a hard  one.  Why 
not  plan  to  get  out  of  the  business  before  it  gets  worse? 

I do  not  forget  that  many  of  you  believe  that  your 
business  can  be  made  honorable.  We  do  not  forget 
the  innocent  social  elements  that  enter  into  the  saloon. 
We  know  that  these  ought  to  be  perpetuated  in  some 
better  way.  Your  training  and  experiences  qualify 
you  to  find  a better  way.  Help  us  to  experiment  in 
this  direction.  One  coffee  and  buttermilk  saloon  in 
Chicago  would  be  a joke;  ten  such  would  probably  soon 
die  for  want  of  support;  but  a hundred  such  would 
begin  to  make  money,  and  a thousand  such,  conducted 
by  expert  saloon-keepers,  with  innocent  accessories, 
without  the  dangerous  tippling  and  treating  habit, 
would  surprise  our  civilization,  solve  many  perplexing 
problems,  bring  light  and  joy  into  thousands  of  homes, 
[119] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


prosper  business,  and  bring  increasing  self-respect  to 
the  thousand  saloon-keepers  engaged  in  this  enterprise. 
Is  it  possible  to  preserve  the  good  elements  of  the 
saloon  after  the  treating  habit  that  leads  to  drunken- 
ness is  abolished?  We  are  up  to  this  experiment. 
Will  you  help  us? 

In  conclusion  we  ask  you  to  remember  that  this  is 
not  a prohibition  campaign,  or  even  a total  abstinence 
campaign.  Those  who  still  think  that  alcoholic  drinks 
are  necessary  to  their  health  or  their  pleasure  might 
still  seek  them  as  they  seek  their  milk,  their  cheese 
and  their  bread,  in  packages,  not  to  be  eaten  and 
drunken  on  the  premises.  It  is  the  retail  places  where 
liquor  is  sold  by  the  drinks,  and  its  use  is  stimulated 
by  the  vicious  treating  habit  of  the  American  saloon — 
places  where  drunkards  congregate  and  where  drunk- 
ards are  made,  places  from  which  your  wives  and  chil- 
dren are  excluded — that  are  condemned  by  the  Amer- 
ican public,  not  alone  by  American  fanatics.  Liberty 
is  not  lawlessness,  and  the  most  rampant  '^personal 
liberty”  man  will  admit  that  his  liberty  ends  where  the 
liberty  of  the  other  party  begins.  All  government  is 
a surrender  of  personal  liberties  for  the  sake  of  the 
larger  liberties  which  come  only  in  law-abiding  and 
law-enforcing  governments,  made  possible  by  order. 

Will  you  think  of  these  things  calmly  in  the  quiet 
hours  of  the  night?  Will  you  talk  these  matters  over 
frankly  with  your  wives  and  children  and  your  self- 
respecting,  self-controlling  patrons?  Is  it  not  possible 
for  us  in  some  way  to  talk  over  these  things  without 
the  bitterness  and  extravagance  of  public  debate? 

The  American  platform  is  unfortunately  given  to 
extravagant  statements,  oftentimes  to  bitter  denuncia- 
tion and  unkind  insinuations;  doubtless  there  will  be 
much  sinning  on  both  sides  during  the  struggle  yet 
[ 120  ] 


A Letter  to  Saloon-Keepers 


before  us.  Let  us  forget  and  forgive  in  this  direction 
and  try  to  remember  that  honest  and  earnest  men  on 
both  sides  are  trying  to  spell  out  a difficult  problem,  to 
find  the  better  way.  Let  us  remember  that 

“New  occasions  teach  new  duties; 

Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth. 

They  must  ever  up  and  onward 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth.” 

Fraternally  yours. 


Q 


imi 


A Letter  to  the  Workingmen  of 
Chicago 


Dear  Fellow  IVorJ^ers: 

For  such  we  are.  The  vast  majority  of  the  citizens 
of  this  great  city  are,  like  yourselves,  workingmen,  born 
of  working  parents,  reared  to  work  for  wages  of  one 
kind  or  another.  Many  of  us,  like  yourselves,  were 
born  across  the  seas,  were  carried  here  by  our  parents, 
or  came  later  through  our  own  choice,  that  we  might 
have  a better  chance  to  labor,  expecting  nothing  better 
than  an  opportunity  to  earn  our  bread  and  a better 
chance  to  care  for  our  loved  ones  and  give  to  our  wives 
and  children  more  comforts  and  higher  privileges.  I 
wish,  then,  to  protest  earnestly  against  recent  attempts 
in  some  quarters  to  force  an  ignominious  class  distinc- 
tion upon  us  by  trying  to  justify  and  defend  the 
saloons  on  the  score  that  they  are  the  ‘Vorking- 
men’s  clubs,”  and  the  ‘^poor  people’s  social  centers.” 
Those  of  us  who  are  wage  earners  know  that  this  is  a 
false  insinuation,  a vulgar  attempt  to  cast  a stigma 
upon  our  poverty  and  to  differentiate  the  ‘"workingman” 
from  the  superior  and  favored  capitalist  “employer” 
and  leisure  class,  who  seem  to  say,  “We  do  not  need 
the  saloon,”  and,  by  implication,  “We  do  not  patronize 
it.”  You  know  well  enough  that  it  is  not  the  day 
laborers,  the  craftsmen  or  members  of  the  Labor 
Unions  that  keep  alive  the  seven  thousand  and  more 
saloons  in  Chicago  alone.  I believe  that,  in  proportion 
[122] 


A Letter  to  Workingmen 


to  the  population  represented  by  the  “employer”  and 
“employe”  classes,  a vastly  larger  proportion  of  the 
former  class  patronizes  the  saloon  than  of  the  latter; 
and  we  know  that  much  of  the  present  capitalist  com- 
bine, representing  the  brewing  and  distilling  industries, 
would  go  to  the  wall  if  they  were  dependent  chiefly 
upon  the  patronage  of  the  toiling  classes.  Most  of  the 
drunkenness,  the  dissipation,  and  the  crime  connected 
therewith  comes  frorg  the  leisure  classes  and  not  from 
the  toiling  classes.  ^The  laboring  men  know  full  well 
that  the  frequenter  of  the  saloon  holds  his  job  by  an 
uncertain  tenure,  and  that  the  most  effective  temper- 
ance organizations  are  the  Labor  Unions,  who  guard 
their  members  as  best  they  can  from  the  debaucheries 
of  the  saloon  and  are  using  more  and  more  effectively 
their  instrumentalities  to  protect  the  wives  and  children 
of  their  members  from  the  hardship  and  humiliations 
that  belong  to  the  family  of  him  who  makes  the  saloon 
his  “club  house.”  Laboring  men  also  know  that,  next 
to  the  Labor  Unions,  the  great  industrial  plants,  the  far- 
seeing  and  effective  “captains  of  industry,”  and  the  great 
railroad  corporations  are  the  most  effective  temperance 
organizations  in  the  country.  In  many  of  these  best 
managed  organizations  of  labor,  to  be  found  frequenting 
the  saloons  in  any  systematic  and  regular  fashion  is  to 
find  oneself  automatically  dropped  out  of  the  service. 

I call  upon  you,  workingmen,  to  resent  this  attempt 
at  forcing  an  ignoble  class  distinction  upon  the  wage- 
earning population  of  this  country  under  the  guise  of 
Personal  Liberty  Plea.  This  insinuation  is  all  the 
more  galling  and  unjust  because  it  has  about  it  the 
air  of  patronage  from  the  kid-gloved  frequenters  of  the 
wealthy  men’s  clubs,  with  their  amply  supplied  side- 
boards and  their  cut  glass  decanters  filled  with  the  most 
fiery  of  liquors. 


[123] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


The  contentions  of  the  Labor  Unions,  more  clearly, 
perhaps,  than  any  other  organization  in  the  United 
States,  set  forth  the  limitations  of  personal  liberty. 
They  teach  that  the  personal  liberty  of  one  man  ends 
where  the  rights  of  another  are  encroached  upon.  All 
organizations  imply  the  surrender  of  individual  rights 
to  public  good.  In  proportion  as  governments  are 
benign  and  democratic,  they  protect  the  weak  from  the 
strong,  the  virtuous  from  the  vicious,  the  noble  im- 
pulses of  the  community  from  the  greed  of  the  ignoble 
and  selfish  scheming  of  the  few. 

You  know  that  the  saloons,  as  now  managed,  are 
the  workingman’s  worst  enemy.  Go  find  the  work- 
ingman’s children  who  are  poorly  shod,  and  the  work- 
ingman’s wife  who  is  shabbily  dressed,  and  the  work- 
ingman’s home  that  is  poorly  furnished  with  fuel  and 
provisions,  and  you  will  know  where  to  find  the  drink- 
ing man.  Go  find  the  workingman  who  is  in  debt,  who 
is  borrowing  small  sums  of  money  and  trying  to  save 
his  financial  face,  and  you  will  know  who  his  largest 
creditor  is. 

We  all  know  that  there  is  great  need  of  more  social 
privileges  for  working  people,  more  places  for  inno- 
cent amusement,  more  centers  for  social  gatherings, 
where  neighbors  may  meet  neighbors  and  take  their 
wives  and  children  along.  The  saloon  is  the  worst 
place  to  offer  such  privileges.  It  is  not  a place  where 
you  can  take  your  wives  and  children;  so  unfitting 
is  this  that  it  is  prevented  by  city  ordinance,  and  you 
know  that  the  hospitalities  of  these  places,  even  to  men, 
are  conditioned  upon  the  amount  of  money  spent  at 
the  bar.  The  free  lunches  that  tempt  you  are  not  given 
you  in  charity,  but  from  shrewd  speculation — the  givers 
get  their  money  back. 

If  the  money  spent  by  workingmen  over  the  bars  of 
[124] 


A Letter  to  Workingmen 


the  saloons  could  be  saved,  and  if  the  workingmen 
received  just  wages  and  their  employers  bore  their 
rightful  share  of  expenses  in  sustaining  the  city 
government  and  enforcing  its  ordinances  concerning 
wholesome  tenements,  the  social  centers,  the  “poor 
men^s  clubs”  that  our  wealthy  men  are  so  solicitous 
about  would  be  realized.  The  issue  now  presented 
is  not  one  of  total  abstinence  or  prohibition,  though 
many  of  us  believe  that  life  is  made  sweeter,  healthier 
and  happier  by  total  abstinence  from  all  intoxicants, 
but  the  fight  is  against  the  saloon  as  a tippling  place 
and  a treating  place,  an  unsocial  place  from  which  your 
wives  and  children  are  excluded  and  where  the  patrons 
are  bound  together  by  no  common  social  tie  of  race, 
religious  preference,  conviction  or  social  taste.  A relish 
for  whiskey  is  a poor  platform  on  which  neighbors  can 
come  together.  The  beer  and  wine  places  of  the  old 
world,  where  men,  women  and  children  of  common 
taste,  a common  language  and  a common  religion 
come  together  to  enjoy  music  and  conversation,  to 
sing  and  dance  together  with  the  sanctions  of  their 
religion  and  in  the  presence  of  their  teachers  and 
their  priests,  find  no  analogy  in  the  American  saloon, 
where  the  jargon  of  many  languages  is  heard  at  once 
and  where  the  tramp,  the  hobo,  the  petty  criminal, 
the  grafter  and  the  big  political  boss  are  at  home 
and  are  oftentimes  most  welcomed  because  they 
are  the  best  patrons  of  the  man  behind  the  bar. 
If  when  this  saloon  nuisance  is  abated  there  is  no  way 
possible  by  which  a workingman  can  furnish  himself 
with  his  beers  and  his  liquors  at  his  home,  or  use  them 
in  the  same  way  that  his  rich  employer  does  on  his  own 
table  and  for  his  own  guests,  it  is  quite  legitimate  that 
we  should  all  try  to  make  his  “privilege”  possible  and 
legal  to  the  poor  man,  or  else  impossible  and  illegal 
[125] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


to  the  rich  man.  However  the  liquor  question  is  set- 
tled, it  is  not  a class  question,  and  the  capitalist  and 
leisure  man  who  are  now  so  solicitous  about  the  rights 
of  the  workingman,  may  well  be  suspected  of  hypocrisy. 
While  speaking  one  word  for  the  poor  ‘laborer,”  are 
they  not  speaking  two  for  themselves? 

If,  as  I fear  is  still  the  case  with  many  lodges,  your 
Lodge  Rooms  have  vicious  connections  with  saloon's, 
it  will  be  all  the  better  chance  for  you  to  do  missionary 
work,  and  this  movement  will  hasten  the  day  so  desired 
by  your  leaders,  when  the  old  time  back  door  connec- 
tion between  the  Labor  Unions  and  the  saloons  shall 
be  no  longer  possible.  Let  us  work  together  to  get  rid 
of  the  saloon;  then  we  will  work  together  to  install 
something  better  that  is  so  much  needed,  and  for  which 
we  are  so  nearly  ready.  In  getting  into  the  dry  terri- 
tory, we  are  getting  in  line  with  advanced  science,  en- 
lightening economics,  progressive  labor  and  intelligent 
and  effective  labor  unions. 

Very  cordially  yours, 


[126] 


A Letter  to  Women 


Dear  Friends : 

The  “Anti-Saloon  Movement’'  may  well  be  consid- 
ered national;  it  is  no  longer  in  the  experimental 
or  sensational  stage,  nor  is  it  longer  to  be  confined  to 
the  rural  districts  and  the  smaller  towns.  It  is  fast 
extending  its  boundaries  from  the  gulf  to  the  lakes  and 
from  ocean  to  ocean.  It  has  already  taken  possession 
of  many  prosperous  cities  and  industrial  centers  and,  if 
all  the  indications  are  not  deceptive,  the  territory 
gained  is  to  be  held  and  steadily  and  surely  enlarged. 

Here,  if  anywhere,  woman’s  interest  enters  into  the 
civic  life.  Here,  if  nowhere  else,  woman  may  well 
grieve  over  the  fact  that  she  has  no  vote  to  cast  in 
behalf  of  a tempted  son,  a fallen  brother,  a debauched 
husband,  or,  under  the  safest  conditions,  a menaced 
manhood  all  about  her.  Woman,  in  her  universally 
acknowledged  and  often  vaunted  “rights”  as  a home- 
maker and  a homekeeper,  here  finds  herself  denied 
the  privilege  of  being  heard  and  counted  in  the  supreme 
test  of  the  ballot  box. 

No  one  can  more  deeply  regret  this  unjust  denial  of 
power  than  myself,  but  this  withholding  of  the  suffrage 
right  on  the  part  of  the  alleged  “lords  of  creation” 
does  not  leave  you  powerless  and  consequently  without 
grave  responsibilities  and  high  opportunities  in  this 
contention. 

The  “last  ditch”  in  wdiich  the  tippling  habit  has  en- 
[127] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


trenched  itself  is  that  of  the  ‘^social  function.”  Wine 
and  its  more  plebeian  companion,  beer,  are  supposed 
to  be  essential  counters  of  good  will,  gracious  attend- 
ants upon  conviviality,  a necessary  decoration  to  a 
society  event,  and  their  absence  is  supposed  to  be  a 
reflection  upon  the  hospitality,  or  at  least  an  accent  of 
some  kind  of  Puritanic  unsociability.  Hence  it  is 
that  thousands  of  gentle  ladies,  representing  the  refine- 
ment of  the  community,  are  found  toying  with  the  wine 
glass  in  the  presence  of  their  hosts,  or,  on  more 
Bohemian  occasions,  tinkling  their  beer  mugs  and 
joking  about  the  same. 

Well  may  such  women  pray  with  Robert  Burns  for 
the  gift 

‘‘To  see  oursel’s  as  ithers  see  us.” 

In  the  light  of  modern  science  as  well  as  of  social 
ethics,  woman,  trying  to  grace  her  table  and  her  home 
with  that  which  she  discards  in  her  own  practice,  is 
simply  aping  a bygone  age;  she  is  posing  in  the  guise 
of  the  mediaeval  “ladye”  whose  banquet  logically  ended 
in  debauchery.  No  more  essential  to  a respectable,  in- 
telligent, sensible,  sober,  modern  dinner  party  is  the 
mediaeval  fool  with  cap  and  bells  than  are  the  decanter 
and  the  beer  bottle. 

Sisters,  the  day  is  at  hand  or  soon  will  be  when  this 
condescension  on  the  part  of  women  to  an  outlived 
appetite  and  an  obsolete  or  obsolescent  practice  will  be 
considered,  as  it  deserves  to  be,  a vulgar  flirtation  with 
vice,  a silly  dallying  with  temptation,  a laying  of  snares 
which  may  entangle  the  innocent  feet  of  one^s  own  boys 
and  the  boys  of  her  neighbors — if  not  her  own  sons, 
husband  and  brothers,  then  somebody  else's  sons,  hus- 
bands and  brothers. 

But  this  appeal  to  women  should  go  much  further 
than  to  the  “favored”  and  the  “safe.”  Only  the  unin- 
[ 128  ] 


A Letter  to  Women 


formed  women  and  the  socially  hardened  can  be  ob- 
livious to  the  awful  burden  which  the  drink  habit  foists 
upon  their  sisters.  Go  study  the  statistics  of  the 
workingwomen;  follow  your  washerwoman,  your  dress- 
maker or  your  shop  girl  to  her  home;  trace  the  sources 
of  her  poverty;  analyze  the  meagerness  of  the  cup- 
board, the  raggedness  of  the  wardrobe,  and  you  will 
promptly  come  upon  this  as  one  of  the  fundamental 
sources  of  the  woman  and  child  problem  in  the  indus- 
trial life  of  today.  Not  only  are  these  working  girls, 
widows  and  mothers  driven  to  the  loom,  the  stores 
and  the  wash  tub  by  man’s  love  of  drink,  but  under  the 
same  fell  inspiration  men  lie  in  wait  for  these  victims 
and  in  ways  known  only  to  those  inspired  by  the 
degradations  of  the  cup,  trap  them  to  disgrace  and 
death.  There  is  an  evil  designated  as  the  “social  evil.” 
Separate  that  from  the  “drink  evil”  and  the  “social  evil,” 
as  now  understood,  as  a municipal  problem  largely 
ceases  to  be.  Human  passions  will  remain  to  bless  or 
to  curse  individuals,  but  lust  as  an  asset  in  business,  as 
a commercial  commodity,  an  investment  for  capital,  will 
pass  away  with  the  passing  of  drinking,  because  as  a 
business  it  will  not  pay  without  the  drinking  accessories. 

This  is  the  age  of  woman’s  clubs.  Woman  is  in  the 
forefront  of  every  agitation  for  the  advancement  of 
civilization.  It  is  high  time  that  women  in  their  or- 
ganized capacity,  in  their  most  successful  and  fashion- 
able organizations,  should  recommit  themselves  to  this 
cause,  free  themselves  from  the  traditional  trammels, 
take  hold  with  twentieth  century  courage  of  this  move- 
ment that  seeks  to  eliminate  from  modern  American 
life  the  nasty  degrading  places,  so  unfit  for  them  and 
their  children  that  they  are  excluded  from  them  by  city 
ordinance. 

Sisters,  you  may  not  vote  yet,  but  you  can  do  im- 
[129] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


measurably  more  than  has  yet  been  clone  by  women  in 
the  interest  of  children  and  the  home,  morality  and 
the  State,  by  taking  the  twentieth  century  stand  against 
that  which  science,  economics,  and,  at  the  present  time, 
the  municipal  experience  of  a growing  number  of  cities 
prove  to  be  unnecessary  to  the  joyous,  progressive  life 
of  men  and  women,  whether  they  be  at  their  toil  or  at 
their  amusements.  It  is  as  little  necessary  to  promote 
play  as  it  is  to  promote  work.  Alcohol  is  a poison;  its 
place  in  the  human  economy  must  be  determined  by 
the  men  of  science;  it  is  a medicine  and  not  a food,  and 
if  it  is  given  only  such  functions  as  are  decreed  for  it 
by  the  physicians  the  problem  will  be  solved.  The  trade 
in  it  will  cease  to  be  profitable  and  no  lady  will  care  to 
drug  her  guests  according  to  a physician’s  prescription. 

It  is  unworthy  the  modern  woman  to  parry  with  a 
smile  an  appeal  to  conscience  or  to  dismiss  with  a joke 
a call  of  reason  or  a cry  of  the  helpless.  Sisters,  take 
this  question  seriously;  think  it  over  in  the  privacy  of 
your  own  chamber;  lay  it  upon  the  altar  of  your  con- 
science; consider  it  as  in  the  presence  of  the  ever- 
living  God  and  the  everlasting  interests  of  His  children. 

Very  fraternally  yours. 


[130] 


A Letter  to  an  Advoeate  of  Beer  as 
a Temperanee  Drink 


Dear  Friend: 

Our  conversation  the  other  day  provoked  much 
thinking  on  my  part  and  compelled  me  to  go  over 
again  the  whole  situation  with  as  much  care  as  I am 
capable  of,  and  I am  moved  to  write  you  some  of  the 
results  of  this  thinking. 

First,  let  me  assure  you  that  your  acts  as  well  as  your 
teaching  prove  that  you  are  as  sincere  a friend  of 
sobriety  and  as  honest  a foe  as  I am  of  the  dissipation, 
vulgarity  and  low  morality,  personal  and  political,  that 
gather  around  the  typical  American  saloon.  I believe 
that  you  desire  to  eliminate  those  obnoxious  elements 
out  of  the  community  as  sincerely  as  I do,  and  that  you 
have  no  interest  in  common  with  the  selfish  commercial 
and  speculative  interests  of  the  great  capitalistic  com- 
bines represented  by  the  brewers  and  distillers  of 
America. 

I admit  also,  without  argument,  your  contention  that 
on  account  of  the  low  percentage  of  alcohol  contained 
a glass  of  beer  is  comparatively  innocent  when  com- 
pared with  a glass  of  whiskey;  I accept  also  your  state- 
ment, based  on  better  information  than  I am  possessed 
of,  that  fewer  villainous  compounds,  substitutes  and 
adulterations  enter  into  the  composition  of  the  beer 
than  into  that  of  the  whiskey  that  is  passed  over  the 
average  saloon  bar.  I am  inclined  to  think  that  you 
are  right  also  in  the  statement  that  the  toxic  effect  of 
[131] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


beer  is  less  than  that  of  coffee,  or  perhaps  tea,  when 
drunk  in  the  same  quantities.  I also  agree  with  you 
perfectly  that  the  social  element  represented  by  the 
saloon  must  be  conserved,  and  that  even  with  the 
seven  thousand  or  more  saloons  in  Chicago,  for  ex- 
ample, the  social  opportunities,  the  chances  for  neigh- 
bors to  get  together  for  innocent  communion  and 
amusement  are  deplorably  inadequate. 

Having  made  these  concessions,  the  following  facts 
remain  and  have  important  bearing  upon  the  question 
at  issue.  It  is  true,  is  it  not,  that  both  beer  and 
whiskey  are  seductive  drinks  on  account  of  the  alcohol 
they  contain?  Repeated  experiments  show  that  any 
non-alcoholic  compound,  on  beer  or  other  lines,  is  a 
business  failure  because  people  will  not  drink  more 
than  is  needful  of  such  compounds  to  satisfy  the  craving 
for  food  or  nourishment;  the  profit  always  comes  from 
the  over-drinking.  But  is  not  the  low  percentage  of 
alcohol  in  beer  more  than  compensated  by  the  larger 
quantities  imbibed?  My  druggist  estimates  that  two 
glasses  of  average  saloon  beer  contain  as  much  alcohol 
as  one  glass  of  whisky.  I suppose  that  eight  glasses 
of  beer  per  day  would  be  considered  very  moderate  beer 
drinking,  and  I am  told  that  twenty  glasses  represent 
the  easy  accomplishment  of  the  habitual  beer  drinker, 
who  still  insists  that  he  is  strictly  temperate  and  never 
intoxicated. ;;  Render  this  equivalent  into  whiskey  .and 
you  have  the  minimum  of  four  glasses  of  whiskey  per 
day,  which  certainly  exceeds  the  claim  of  the  whiskey 
drinker  who  insists  that  he  never  takes  too  much,  and  a 
maximum  of  ten  glasses  of  whiskey  a day,  which  clear- 
ly puts  a man  into  the  class  of  over-drinkers.  The  ex- 
tended girth  and  the  blossoming  nose,  the  familiar 
characteristics  of  the  beer  guzzler,  testify  to  the  fact 
that  there  is  something  about  the  beer  mug  that  leads 
[132] 


A Letter  to  a Beer  Advocate 


to  over-drinking.  And  as  a matter  of  fact,  if  my  drug- 
gist is  correct,  is  not  beer  drinking  always  accompanied, 
not  only  with  alcoholic  temptations,  but  with  actual 
tendencies  to  alcoholic  excesses? 

Your  picture  of  the  delightful  domestic  felicities  of 
the  German  beer  garden  and  the  French  and  Italian 
wine  cafes  is  certainly  attractive,  and  I am  not  in  a 
position  to  deny  the  accuracy  of  your  endorsement. 
But  are  the  sociological,  to  say  nothing  of  the  climatic 
conditions  of  the  United  States  such  as  to  make  a re- 
production of  these  European  conditions  possible? 
The  homogeneous  character  of  the  population,  the  less 
strenuous  life,  the  simpler  and  purer  drinks,  the  ab- 
sence of  the  get-rich-quick  madness  of  the  dealers  and 
manufacturers  of  Europe,  do  not  obtain  in  our  Amer- 
ican cities.  The  mixed  population,  the  sharp  distinc- 
tions between  the  rich  and  the  poor  in  their  bibulous 
habits,  between  employers  and  employes,  and  the  damn- 
able distinction  of  sex  which  excludes  all  self-respecting 
women  from  the  companionship  of  all  self-respecting 
men  in  their  hours  of  recreation  and  social  amenities, 
are  factors  in  the  American  saloon  not  known  in  the 
European  resorts  which  you  admire. 

From  your  own  standpoint,  when  you  have  made  a 
decent  drinking  place  where  only  beer  and  light  wines 
are  indulged  in,  and  those  only  in  such  quantities  as 
wait  on  digestion  and  good  companionship,  a place 
where  women  and  children  are  welcome  and  may  go 
with  impunity,  have  we  not  come  to  something  very 
different  from  the  great  majority  of  the  seven  thousand 
saloons  now  infesting  our  city?  And  is  there  any  hope 
of  arriving  at  these  social  centers,  recreation  parks,  etc., 
that  you  and  I both  work  for,  until  we  have  broken  the 
power  of  the  god  Mammon  who  has  so  enlisted  the  co- 
operation of  King  Gambrinus?  In  other  words,  such 
[133] 


On  The  Firing  Line 


a saloon  as  you  want  is  possible  only  when  such  saloons 
as  we  have  are  abolished,  root  and  branch. 

Thus  you  see  the  process  of  reasoning  by  which  I 
arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  you,  your  misgivings  not- 
withstanding, as  well  as  I,  belong  to  the  anti-saloon 
league,  and  that  we  go  but  a little  way  in  our  prac- 
tical effort  at  reform  until  we  come  together  and  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  tasks  of  abating  the  saloon 
nuisance  and  eliminating  the  poisons  out  of  our  food 
and  our  drink,  one  of  which  poisons  is  alcohol,  whose 
economy  in  the  physical  organism  of  man,  if  it  has  any, 
is  medicinal,  and  the  time  and  quantity  of  whose  use  are 
to  be  determined  by  the  expert  physician  and  not  by 
the  deceptive  itch  of  the  palate  that  is  perverted  by  a 
dangerous  habit.  Cordially  yours. 


[134] 


